Ex-Republican officials ask Florida judge to reject Trump’s special master request

A group of former prosecutors who served at the highest levels of Republican-led administrations has asked the Florida judge overseeing former president Donald Trump’s request for a special master to review documents seized from his home to reject Mr Trump’s claims.

In an amicus brief filed before US District Judge Aileen Cannon, former prosecutors Donald Ayer, Gregory Brower, John Farmer Jr., Stuart Gerson, and Peter Keisler urged her to deny Mr Trump’s motion for the appointment of a third-party special master to review the reams of sensitive documents which FBI agents took from his Palm Beach, Florida home during an 8 August search.

They were joined on the brief by two former Republican governors, Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and William Weld of Massachusetts.

In previous court filings, Mr Trump’s attorneys have argued that Judge Cannon should appoint such a third-party reviewer and direct them to determine whether any of the documents — including those bearing markings denoting them as classified at levels as high as Top Secret — should be shielded from use against him under executive privilege.

But the ex-GOP officials said issuing the relief sought by Mr Trump would be “unprecedented” for several reasons, not least among them the fact that Mr Trump has not made any effort to formally invoke executive privilege. If he did, they wrote, Judge Cannon would be barred from hearing the claim because US law requires executive privilege claims to be adjudicated by the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

The former Republican prosecutors added that a special master would be a “waste of time” because Mr Trump’s executive privilege claim — a claim made against the executive branch which holds the privilege — is “manifestly frivolous”.

“Here, the former President has identified no concrete interests supporting his position, but the Executive Branch seeks the seized records for core constitutional functions: to conduct a criminal investigation and to assess the damage caused by potential mistreatment of classified information. The unprecedented appointment of a special master in this case would frustrate those core and time-sensitive government functions,” they said.

Though the former officials wrote that they take no position on whether a special master should review the seized materials to determine whether any are protected by attorney-client privilege, they said Mr Trump’s lawyers have “failed to explain why cases involving the appointment of a special master to review for attorney-client privilege have any relevance” because past cases that required special masters dealt with searches of attorneys’ homes and offices.

The former officials brief comes just hours before Judge Cannon is set to hear arguments from the Department of Justice and Mr Trump’s legal team over whether to appoint a special master.

The hearing was set to take place in West Palm Beach, Florida at 2pm eastern time.