Federal Judge Aileen Cannon, while selecting one of the special master nominees suggested by former President Donald Trump's legal team, properly allowed for his legal rights to be reviewed while ensuring the Department of Justice "isn't overstepping," constitutional attorney Jenna Ellis, who has served as Trump's legal counsel, said on Newsmax on Thursday.
"Judge Canon properly articulated that she had serious concerns about the DOJ's ability or, I think more likely, prejudice with their ability, to segregate and properly classify all of these documents," Ellis told Newsmax's "John Bachman Now." "This does warrant a special master in this case, and so she's properly allowing for President Trump's constitutionally protected rights to be reviewed and to make sure that the DOJ isn't overstepping here."
The judge also signaled, with her selection of longtime New York Judge Raymond Dearie, that the burden will be on the DOJ to prove why it was "suddenly an emergency" for the FBI to raid Trump's Mar-a-Lago and seize documents and other items, said Ellis.
"This is two years almost later and now they're saying, 'Oh, this is suddenly an emergency,'" said Ellis. "She's not buying it, nor are the American people."
Ellis also did not object to Cannon's ruling that Trump will pay the cost for Dearie to review the materials, and said the judge, although he was a former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act judge who signed off on the warrant for the FBI to investigate Trump's 2016 campaign aide Carter Page.
"There's been a lot of talk and speculation that because he signed off on that Carter Page warrant that somehow that would put him as an antagonist to Trump, but I think exactly the opposite," said Ellis. "It came out that the DOJ and the FBI misled that court. Any judge in similar circumstances likely would also have signed off on it. He's going to be looking at the DOJ with a lot of heightened scrutiny and making sure that he classifies [documents] appropriately."
There has also been some speculation about whether the DOJ will appeal the decision on the special master, and Ellis said she's sure the department is examining all of its legal options, but an appeal would only delay the case and show further proof that the raid was not conducted as an emergency matter.
"The best move for them is to simply acquiesce to the special master, and allow the process to work itself out," Ellis said. "[Attorney General] Merrick Garland said that he was all in favor of transparency and making sure that the DOJ and the FBI are doing their jobs, and so this is exactly the point and purpose of a special master."
In other news, Ellis called it "comical" that Democrats are outraged that GOP states are sending immigrants to Democrat-controlled locations, including this week to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and the Washington, D.C., home of Vice President Kamala Harris.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has written a letter to Garland demanding that the governors of the GOP states be charged with kidnapping, but Ellis said it would have been better for him to write to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott and offer California up as a sanctuary location.
"The Democrats are just showing their hypocrisy here, and this is a brilliant move by Ron DeSantis and Gov. Abbott to say, 'Listen, these are your policies. What are you going to do about it?'" said Ellis. "It's absolutely comical, and I've got my popcorn ready for the rest of it."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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