Theodore Roosevelt said, “No man is above the law.” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in Trump v. Vance, “In our judicial system, ‘the public has a right to every man’s evidence.’ Since the earliest days of the Republic, ‘every man’ has included the President of the United States.” Judge, now Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote in Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives v. McGahn, “Presidents are not kings.”

Yet Judge Aileen Cannon, adjudicating former President Trump’s request for a special master to review the materials seized from his estate, pursuant to a lawfully issued search warrant, wrote that because the subject of the controversial Mar-a-Lago search warrant held the “former position as President of the United States” and because “the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own,” a special master was necessary. The special master would review the documents seized. She also enjoined the Justice Department from using any evidence seized pursuant to the search warrant until the completion of the review by the special master. Judge Cannon wrote that any “future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm” to the former president. Judge Cannon could have limited the special master’s role to reviewing documents for attorney client privilege for which there is precedent, Michael Cohen v. United States of America, but she also authorized a review of documents possibly covered by executive privilege on less than substantial authority. And more importantly, she halted the criminal investigation during the review. Trump’s lawyers did not even ask for this remedy.

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