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ttorneys representing the Department of Justice (DOJ) will likely soon get their hands on a number of classified documents necessary to bring charges against former President Donald Trump, legal observers contend, after a judge’s ruling removed a Trump-appointed arbiter that could have withheld those documents from evidence in a trial against him.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon signed an order from a Trump-appointed judge formally reversing a ruling she’d previously made allowing a Trump-selected reviewer, Raymond Dearie, to play referee in a case accusing the former president of improperly removing dozens of classified documents before leaving the White House last year.
Trump’s attorneys have said the ex-president was subject to executive privilege in the case, and therefore subject to different rules around his ability to access classified material as well as for what purpose. Cannon, initially, agreed, and under her order, gave Dearie the authority to review and then decide which of the documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home by the FBI—many of which allegedly contain highly sensitive intelligence—could be used as evidence against him in court.
Many, however, disagreed Trump was still subject to executive privilege after leaving the White House. Cannon’s formal action to comply with the higher court’s ruling, they said, reflects that opinion.
