When former President Donald Trump went to court against the Justice Department to stall the federal investigation into classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, a district judge he appointed, Aileen Cannon, granted Trump everything he asked for, appointing a special master to review the documents for executive privilege even though no legal precedent grants a former president privilege over national security documents, and effectively blocking the DOJ from conducting a national security review until the special master's work is complete.
Now, the special master himself, Senior Judge Raymond Dearie of Brooklyn, is rebuking Cannon for a decision that hamstrings a key function of the job she assigned him to do, in a filing published by Just Security. Specifically, he is taking issue with her rescinding his authority to issue interim reports as he conducts his review — and saying her reasoning for this made no sense.
