The court-ordered review of thousands of documents seized from Donald Trump’s Florida home by the FBI can be streamlined if five “global issues” are quickly resolved, a judge was told.
Key areas of disagreement include whether the former president had authority to convert presidential records to personal ones during and after his term, and if pardon request documents received while he was president belong to him or the government, lawyers for Trump and the Justice Department said in a joint filing Wednesday.
The court-appointed special master appointed to oversee this process, U.S. District Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, ordered the parties to file briefs outlining their arguments by Nov. 8. Dearie faces a Dec. 16 deadline to complete his review and submit recommendations to a Florida judge.
“The parties believe that resolution of the global issues will enable Your Honor to rule on large groups of documents and minimize the number of documents that require individualized review,” according to the filing.
Other “global issues” identified by the parties include whether Trump should be required to file an affidavit on whether he agrees with the accuracy of the government’s inventory of seized documents, and if documents marked as personal by Trump can still be subject to claims of executive privilege.
The Justice Department’s filter team, which conducted an initial review of the seized records to identify any that might be covered by attorney-client privilege, was ordered by Dearie on Wednesday to “immediately” transfer some records in its possession to investigators in the criminal case. The judge issued the order after Trump’s lawyers withdrew their claims of attorney-client privilege over a set of disputed records.
“The Case Team and plaintiff are to attempt to resolve or narrow any disputes regarding executive privilege and/or the Presidential Records Act,” Dearie said. The judge ordered the parties to complete a log of any remaining disputes by Nov. 12.
