Donald Trump’s request for a special master to review the documents taken by the FBI during their raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate has been granted by United States District Judge Aileen Cannon. She also halted the DOJ’s use of the records for investigative purposes. The decision comes despite multiple objections and arguments from the DOJ as they claimed an outside legal expert was “not necessary” due to government officials already completing their review of potentially privileged documents.

Judge Aileen Cannon said, “What is the harm?” after she has already made clear her consideration of approving the special master. Choosing who the special master is will be an obviously slow-paced decision. There are no details as to how much of a significant effect the ruling to no longer use the documents in investigations for the DOJ will sway the outcome of their probe into Donald Trump. Cannon added that she would permit the continuation of risk assessments of the documents being conducted by the United States internal Intelligence Community.

Donald Trump and his lawyers argued that a special master would be a necessary measure so that any personal information or documents recovered could be filtered out and returned to Donald Trump. Also, one point of argument was that any documents protected by the attorney-client privilege or executive privilege could also be filed out. The DOJ argued this push after announcing it had already reviewed all of the possible documents and identified its own set of papers that could possibly be deemed attorney-client privileged.

The DOJ also claimed that Donald Trump is not entitled to the return of any presidential records since he is no longer president. According to investigators, the personal items that are possibly mixed in were “commingled with classified information, giving them potential value as evidence.”