SHOWDOWN

Trump Recommends Judge Who OK’ed Carter Page Surveillance for Special Master

The choice of Raymond Dearie as a candidate for special master in the Mar-a-Lago case has raised some eyebrows.

The Department of Justice and Donald Trump have each submitted two candidates to serve as a special master to review documents seized from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home last month. According to court documents filed late Friday, Trump, in a somewhat puzzling move, suggested former judge Raymond Dearie as a candidate, despite Dearie having previously approved a warrant for the FBI to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page during the Russia investigation. Trump also put forward Paul Huck, Jr., a former partner at the corporate law firm Jones Day. Federal prosecutors pitched two retired judges, Thomas Griffith and Barbara Jones, who previously served as a special master in the Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani cases. The court filing also notes that Trump, who requested a special master in the case, claiming some of the documents are privileged, is seeking to “split evenly the professional fees and expenses.” But the DOJ is not on board with that: “The Government’s position is that, as the party requesting the special master, Plaintiff should bear the additional expense of the Special Master’s work,” federal lawyers wrote.