On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Canon declined to immediately issue a ruling on whether a special master will be appointed to review documents seized in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) raid on Mar-a-Lago in August. Fox News reported that Judge Canon said she would issue a ruling "in due course."
However, Judge Canon was apparently unimpressed with Department of Justice's (DOJ) arguments that a special master is unnecessary:
DOJ attorney Jay Bratt, meanwhile, argued that Trump no longer has the same legal privileges to classified documents as when he was in office.
"He is no longer the president, and because he is not … he was unlawfully in possession of them," Bratt said of the documents the department took from Trump's home.
Justice Department lawyers also argued that a special master is simply not necessary and said it would delay the investigation into Trump.
Canon, meanwhile, seemed skeptical of the government's arguments at times.
"What is the harm of appointing a special master," the judge said during the hearing. "What is your articulation of harm other than the general concern that it would delay a criminal investigation?"
It's unsurprising that the DOJ would be unwelcoming of more scrutiny to their targeting of political opponents. The Article III Project's Mike Davis explained:
So, the Biden Justice Department and the FBI has a pretty bad track record as it relates to President Trump. We’ve seen that they have weaponized and politicized law enforcement repeatedly to get Trump. This was an unprecedented, unnecessary, unlawful home raid on a former president. The whole legal basis for the raid has been blown apart. They went after Trump, they say he may have violated the Espionage Act. That’s not even possible as the commander in chief he can declassify anything he wants. They say he may have stolen or misused government property under the Presidential Records Act and other statutes.
Another example of how the FBI has been weaponized is the recent revelation that FBI warnings were the catalyst for Facebook to mark the Hunter Biden laptop story as “potentially misinformation, important misinformation" leading up to the 2020 presidential election. This contributed to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden's ability to deny the existence of the laptop and his involvement in the records stored on it. Margot Cleveland explained how this revelation could have broad implications beyond the Hunter Biden laptop story:
Was Biden lying? Or did someone tell Biden that the laptop was Russian disinformation? Did the FBI and intelligence community lie to the Democrat candidate about the authenticity of the laptop, rather than provide Joe Biden with a proper defensive briefing? If so, who lied? Who knew of the lie? Who approved the lie or directed it?
And what about Hunter? Did Biden ask his son about the laptop? What did Hunter say? Did Biden know the FBI was lying about it being disinformation and just go along with that narrative?
These questions barely scratch the surface, with more serious questions concerning whether the FBI plotted with the Biden campaign to push the Russian disinformation narrative and to seek censorship of the story. And before writing that off as a crazy conspiracy theory, remember that it was Zuckerberg — the Zuck Bucks king — who revealed that the FBI had approached him and warned that the about-to-be dumped story was Russian disinformation. So we know the FBI holds responsibility for pushing the disinformation canard to Big Tech, we just don’t know whether agents coordinated the plan with the Biden campaign.
A bunch of other emails here, showing broad coordination on what content to censor https://t.co/7OdFO2N2NH
— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) September 1, 2022
To learn more about how the Biden Administration has targeted its political opponents through the DOJ and the FBI, join RNLA for a webinar this Friday at 2:00 p.m. ET featuring Margot Cleveland and Mike Davis.
Register here for RNLA’s next webinar this Friday at 2 p.m. ET. We will discuss the Biden DOJ’s targeting of its political opponents. https://t.co/xZkS49xonC
— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) August 31, 2022