A federal judge who was appointed by former President Donald Trump and ruled in his favor in the case involving records seized from his home by the FBI has been assigned to his new criminal case.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon was assigned to the criminal case, which was lodged in federal court in southern Florida, according to the court docket.
New cases are assigned randomly to one of 26 judges who operate in the district, according to the court’s internal rules.
Cannon, a former U.S. prosecutor who was appointed as a judge in 2020, sided with Trump in a previous case brought by the former president against the government following its execution of a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Trump asked for an independent person called a special master to be appointed to help adjudicate disputes over the documents the FBI seized, many of which weren’t marked classified, because he said many of the documents weren’t allowed to be seized under the warrant.
Department of Justice (DOJ) officials opposed the request, alleging that appointing a special master would harm national security and would impede its criminal investigation into Trump.
Cannon ruled on Sept. 5, 2022, that a special master would be helpful in identifying personal documents that Trump may be entitled to, such as tax documents that the government had acknowledged seizing.
She noted that the government had acknowledged botching a review of the documents for potentially privileged materials and that the team in charge of the review wasn’t always “perceived to be as impartial as special masters.”
“Concerns about the perception of fair process are heightened where, as here, the Privilege Review Team and the Investigation Team contain members from the same section within the same DOJ division, even if separated for direct reporting purposes on this specific matter,” Cannon said.
She later said, “The Court is mindful that restraints on criminal prosecutions are disfavored but finds that these unprecedented circumstances call for a brief pause to allow for neutral, third-party review to ensure a just process with adequate safeguards.”
Cannon named U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, a Reagan appointee, as the special master and enabled him to view materials with classification markings.
