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Cannon approved Trump’s request for a special master to oversee the Mar-a-Lago documents.

Last month, the FBI raided former United States President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida on suspicions that he had illegally removed classified documents from the White House. During this raid, numerous documents were uncovered, many of which marked with governmental seals indicating top secret and classified information. Trump claimed that he had not violated any laws in possessing these documents, and called for a special master to oversee their investigation.

While most legal experts and investigators expected Trump’s call to be rejected outright, US District Judge Aileen Cannon, herself a Trump-era appointee, surprised investigators by approving the request. The appointment of the special master is likely to significantly delay the investigation.

Cannon’s decision has been met with severe blowback from investigators and legal experts, who have derided it as a politically-slanted move made intentionally to favor Trump. “I think it’s a corrupt decision. I think it is a special law just for Donald Trump by a Trump appointee, and it is unmoored from precedent, insupportable in law, will not be approved of by anybody who isn’t a Trump fanatic,” former Department of Homeland Security official Paul Rosenzweig told NBC.

Aileen Cannon has worked mostly in obscurity since Donald Trump appointed her as a federal judge. Then she granted the former president’s request for an independent arbiter to review materials seized last month from his Florida club.https://t.co/XpZKkc25qf

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 7, 2022

“It is supremely disappointing, because up until now … the courts have been the last bulwark against excess, and this decision suggests that at least some of Trump’s judges put loyalty to the man over loyalty to the rule of law, and that’s deeply unfortunate,” Rosenzweig added.

Cannon has claimed that Trump has a right to the documents under executive privilege, but experts have fired back that executive privilege only applies to actively-serving US Presidents. “He is no longer the president. And because he’s no longer the president, he had no right to those documents,” said Justice Department lawyer Jay Bratt.