Bill Barr says the Justice Department should appeal the special summary judgment on the Trump documents

Donald Trump– says the former US Attorney General recent ruling appointing an outside arbitrator for the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago investigative documents will not put the former president in legal jeopardy.

“I don’t think the appointment of a special master will last, but even if it does, I don’t see it fundamentally changing the trajectory.” Bill Barr told Fox News on Tuesday.

On Monday, a federal judge in Florida ordered the appointment of a special mastera third-party reviewer to check whether any of the documents seized last month from Mr. Trump’s Florida estate were protected by executive privilege and the former president’s attorney-client privilege.

The former Trump administration attorney general said the ruling was “wrong” and urged the Justice Department to appeal, but argued that Trump was unlikely to escape prosecution.

“The basic dynamics of the case are established,” Mr. Barr added. “The government has very strong evidence of what it really needs to determine whether the charges are adequate, which is: government documents were taken; classified information was obtained and processed improperly; and they consider, and there is some evidence that they have been deceived. None of this is really relevant to the content of the documents.’

Mr. Trump and his lawyers requested a special master in August, shortly after federal agents executed a court-approved search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago club, discovering more than 100 “unique classified documents,” including three kept in Mr. Trump’s desk. The classification levels ranged from classified – the lowest level of classification in the US system – to the highest, top secret.

The Justice Department called the request “unprecedented” and improper, arguing that Mr. Trump could not claim executive privilege both because the Justice Department is part of the executive branch along with the White House and because the former president no longer holds a position.

“There is no role for a special master in executive privilege,” Julie Edelstein, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, said during a court hearing on the matter.

Florida federal court is final sided with Mr. Trumparguing that the ruling was necessary because of the “undoubtedly unprecedented nature of the search of the former president’s residence,” the “importance of maintaining institutional trust” in the justice system and what she called “an interest in ensuring the integrity of an orderly process amid raging allegations of bias and leaks in the media.”

Now, federal officials can’t use the documents they’ve seized to further their investigation until a special master conducts a review, a process that could take months.

They hinted that they may continue to use other strategies, including interviewing witnesses.

There were many outside observers confused by the decision.

Constitutional law expert Steve Vladek of the University of Texas wrote on Twitter that the ruling was “ridiculous” and “just a sad day for the courts.”

“This is twisting the law into a pretzel in a way that is not supported by precedent as it is unlikely to be followed in future cases,” he said on Monday.

The Justice Department said it was considering options for a review.

“The United States is studying the opinion and will consider the appropriate next steps in the ongoing litigation,” the spokesman said. told The New York Times.

Mr. Barr has gone from a Trump ally to a frequent critic.

In recent days, he has rejected the argument by many conservatives that Donald Trump is the victim of unprecedented surveillance. On the contrary, Mr Barr argued that he would be rightly searched for his own unprecedented behaviour.

“People say it was unprecedented, well, it’s also unprecedented for the president to take all this classified information and put it in a country club, okay?” he told Fox News last week.