As the U.S. judge assigned to assess the documents prepared for his first hearing on the subject on Tuesday, the legal team of former President Donald Trump refrained from disclosing whether he had declassified records found during an FBI investigation of his Florida property in August.

On Monday, Judge Raymond Dearie sent a draft plan to both sides asking for information about papers Trump purportedly declassified, as he stated publicly and without justification, even though his attorneys haven't claimed that in court documents.

Trump's attorneys argued in a letter sent ahead of the hearing on Tuesday that it is not the right moment and would require him to reveal a defense to any subsequent indictment - an admission that the probe may result in criminal charges.

Police Officer outside Trump's residence, Viera/AFP/Getty Images

Dearie, a senior federal judge in Brooklyn, was chosen to serve as a special master, an impartial arbiter. In the course of the Justice Department's criminal investigation into the suspected improper management of the records, he will assist in choosing which of the more than 11,000 documents collected during the search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence on August 8 should be retained.

Dearie will advise U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon as to whether documents would be exempt from disclosure due to attorney-client or executive privilege, which permits the president to withhold specific records or information.

It is unknown if the review will proceed as directed by Cannon, the Florida judge who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020 and gave the order for it.

Trump is being looked at for keeping government documents at his Palm Beach resort after he left office in January 2021, some of which were tagged as highly confidential. He has denied wrongdoing and said that the probe is a biased attack without offering any supporting details.

On Friday, the Justice Department filed an appeal of a portion of Cannon's decision, requesting a halt to the judge's prohibition on the FBI accessing approximately 100 papers with classified markings and the study of those materials.

According to federal prosecutors, the judge's decision for the special master review would prevent the government from addressing dangers to national security and compel the revelation of "extremely sensitive data."

Trump's legal team opposed the government's request and referred to the Justice Department's inquiry as "unusual and misguided" in its answer to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has its headquarters in Atlanta, on Tuesday.

The roughly 100 documents in question, according to the Justice Department's 40-page filing, are still classified, but Trump's attorneys argue that the special master should be allowed to study them in order to "restore order from chaos."

She commanded him to complete his review by the end of November in accordance with Cannon's directive naming Dearie as special master. Although her procedure called for Trump's counsel to review the documents and Trump's lawyers might not have the required security clearance, she told him to give priority to the materials designated classified.

Since it has already completed its own attorney-client privilege analysis and set aside roughly 500 documents that may qualify, the Justice Department has declared that the special master process is unnecessary. It rejects the use of executive privilege and claims that any attempt to enforce it would be ineffective.

After Trump left office with government-owned records and failed to surrender them despite many requests and a subpoena, the FBI conducted a search in August.

Whether the government has all the records is still a matter of debate. Following the FBI's discovery of empty files with classification marks at Mar-a-Lago, the Justice Department stated that some classified information may still be missing.

This chaos is living proof that our judicial system is flawed, which is the tragic part of this situation. Trump is infamously lousy at committing crimes. He frequently gets caught. His entrepreneurial endeavors all end in failure. Many books have been written about his history of fraud. Six bankruptcies and a lifetime's worth of charges. countless lawsuits The situation only gets worse when you include in his official actions.

Voting booths, not courts, will determine whether or not this conflict is won. Trump is aware of this, but I believe the left-leaning politicians have yet to grasp it.

Trump's attorneys refuse to confirm whether he declassified materials during the FBI search

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