(NewsNation) — The Department of Justice and former President Donald Trump’s legal team both submitted their choices for special master to oversee the documents seized by the FBI during a search of the Mar-a-Lago estate last month.
Not surprisingly, the two sides were not close on many of the details around how the special master should operate and when the review of documents should be completed, setting the stage for yet another chapter of legal showdowns.
Sept. 15 is the next key date in the battle between Trump and the DOJ. The government would like Federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon to stay her order to appoint a special master on that day, possibly making the entire brouhaha about a special master a moot point.
The Hill’s White House columnist Niall Stanage told “NewsNation Prime” this debate over how a special master should operate and who it should be will serve to slow down the investigation.
“The longer the investigation is out there, the more (Trump) can attack it, the more he can complain that he has been unfairly dealt with,” Stanage said.
Stanage said Trump’s potential ambitions to run for president in 2024 could also be playing a factor in why Trump would want to delay this process. If he can delay it until he is a candidate, Stanage said, he can then frame it as a political attack on his campaign.
“All questions like executive privilege, the government has been very scathing of the Trump arguments on that score but that doesn’t really change the Trump position that he can still exert executive privilege over some of these documents,” Stanage said.
