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In a new legal filing, the Justice Department says it agrees with one of Donald Trump's choices to review independently documents that the FBI seized at Mar-a-Lago last month.
In a filing made Monday night, DOJ lawyers said that they would be open to appointing Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge of the federal court in the Eastern District of New York, along with the two former judges the feds had suggested.
On Aug. 8, a special master would go through the papers that were found at the former president's Florida home. The feds and Trump's lawyers have had different ideas about what the independent third party should do and which documents they should look at.
The Justice Department said that Dearie, who is on senior active status, has shown that he "could do the work quickly" if US District Judge Aileen Cannon chooses him for the job.
The DOJ chose retired Manhattan judge Barbara Jones or former President George W. Bush's pick, retired federal appeals court judge Thomas Griffith, to look over the stack of documents.
In their legal filing, the government said, "Judges Jones, Griffith, and Dearie have a lot of experience as judges. During that time, they have presided over federal criminal and civil cases, including federal cases involving national security and privilege."
Trump's other choice, Florida lawyer Paul Huck Jr., was turned down by the federal government because, according to the filing, he "does not appear to have similar experience."
Trump rejected Jones and Griffith as the special master, but he didn't say why in public.
In an earlier filing on Monday, Trump's team also criticized the DOJ's investigation into whether Trump illegally kept classified documents.
“This investigation of the 45th President of the United States is both unprecedented and misguided,” they wrote. “In what at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control, the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records.”
Judge Cannon approved Trump's request for a special master and stopped the feds from going through documents as part of their investigation, at least for now.
The DOJ had asked the judge before to change that decision, saying that keeping it could hurt the investigation.
The Justice Department said Trump wasn't supposed to keep presidential records, but Trump's lawyers say in their filing that the former commander-in-chief had a lot of power to keep the records.
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