A federal judge on Thursday appointed a special inspector to review documents the FBI seized in August from former President Donald Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
Raymond Dearie, a former federal judge in Brooklyn, New York, was tapped to review the papers and exclude those that are protected by the legal privilege that exists between a client and their attorney.
Pages from an FBI property list of items seized from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and released by the Justice Department, Friday, Sept. 2, 2022.Jon Elswick/AP
Trump's legal team, who petitioned for a special supervisor, accepted Dearie's appointment, The Associated Press reported.
It's unclear how long the special inspector's work will last, but a judge in Florida has ordered the Justice Department to suspend several key aspects of its investigation of Trump for possible crimes associated with the law of espionage and the handling of highly classified information.
[“Irreparable damage.” The US asks not to further delay the investigation into the Trump documents]
The FBI has said it found more than 11,000 documents at Mar-a-Lago that Trump took from the White House in January 2021, including more than 100 with classified material seals.
Trump's lawyers had asked a judge last month to appoint an independent expert to review the files seized by the FBI, alleging that they included legally protected personal documents of Trump and his attorneys, the bad faith disclosure of which could negatively affect the former president.
This is a developing story.
Please check back for updates.
