Special Master Raymond Dearie tapped a retired magistrate judge, who also served as an impartial adviser to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in order to assist in the independent review of the records seized by the FBI from the Florida home of former President Donald Trump.
In a Thursday filing, Dearie said he has “determined that the efficient administration of the Special Master’s duties requires the assistance of the Honorable James Orenstein (Ret.), a former United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of New York, who has experience with complex case management, privilege review, warrant procedures and other matters that may arise in the course of the Special Master’s duties,” and said that Orenstein has served as “an appointed amicus curiae in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court” and “currently holds Top Secret clearance.”
Dearie, who also served on the FISC, was the judge who signed off on a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page; however, this was before the FBI misconduct surrounding that application was discovered. In the filing, Dearie said he will utilize the Eastern District of New York court staff in carrying out his duties as special master.
He also noted that he will “seek no additional compensation for performing the duties of Special Master in this action,” but proposed that Orenstein “be compensated at the hourly rate of $500.”
Dearie and Orenstein are tasked with reviewing around 11,000 records seized by the FBI during it’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. The special master and his team will review those records for any with executive privilege or attorney-client privilege or for personal records.
The 11th Circuit Court accepted the Justice Department’s motion this week, which will allow the government to continue to review approximately 100 classified documents seized during the Aug. 8 raid.
Dearie also ordered that the Justice Department submit a declaration or affidavit as to whether the property inventory receipt represents the “full and accurate extent of the property seized” from Mar-a-Lago, “excluding documents bearing classification markings” no later than Monday.
Dearie gave the Trump team until no later than Sept. 30 to provide a declaration of affidavit, including a list of any specific items in the property inventory that were not seized from the premises, a list of items that were seized but to which the description of the contents or the location of the item was incorrect and a list and description of any item that Trump’s legal team asserts was seized but is not listed in the property receipt.
“This submission shall be plaintiff’s final opportunity to raise any factual dispute as to the completeness and accuracy of the Detailed property inventory,” Dearie wrote in the filing.
Dearie said that on Friday, Trump’s legal team and the government need to agree upon and contract with a “document review vendor” that will “host the seized materials in electronic form.”
He also gave the government until Monday to make available all materials in an electronic format with a spreadsheet for each document specifying whether the DOJ’s Privilege Review Team has designated the document as potentially privileged and whether the document could be covered by attorney-client or executive privilege.
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