Special master to examine the documents, but officials can continue their national-security review.
The motion will temporarily block the government from using the materials for a criminal investigation. However, the Labor Day order permitted intelligence officials to continue their examination of potential damage to national security the former president may have caused by taking highly sensitive documents to his private club.
Former President Trump asked the court to appoint the independent attorney to review materials federal agents seized on Aug. 8 from a storage room and the former president’s office. The search came after months of discussions between Trump representatives and the government failed to satisfy authorities that all national-security documents had been transferred to the National Archives.
The government argued that Mr. Trump had no legal right to seek such a review and that it was unnecessary because a Justice Department “filter team,” separate from the investigation, already had identified materials that could be protected by attorney-client privilege.
Monday’s order directed the parties to confer and return to court by Sept. 9 with a list of candidates to serve as special master and a draft order defining the master’s responsibility.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment. The government could appeal the judge’s decision to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Atlanta.
The order by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee sitting in Fort Pierce, Fla., found no “compelling showing of callous disregard for [Mr. Trump’s] constitutional rights” in the government’s approach to the search, which it executed after a federal magistrate judge in West Palm Beach approved a warrant last month.
Nonetheless, Judge Cannon was highly sensitive to the potential damage to Mr. Trump’s reputation should improperly seized materials be used to initiate criminal process against him.
“As a function of Plaintiff’s former position as President of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own,” Judge Cannon wrote. “A future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude” than that an ordinary criminal defendant might suffer.
Political | Process 
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