A judge who was appointed special master to review thousands of White House documents seized from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in August challenged the former president's legal claim of privilege over certain records on Tuesday.
The Justice Department's access to certain documents for its criminal probe into Trump's handling of sensitive government records has been blocked by Trump and his lawyers.
The special master said in a hearing that there wasn't enough evidence to support the privilege claim.
Dearie said it was a bit puzzling as he went through the log. Where's the beef? I need something to eat.
The judge made a reference to a phrase from Wendy's that first appeared in 1984.
The small batches of records that the DOJ already set aside from the larger trove of records that were seized from Trump's resort were the subject of Dr earie's doubts.
Drearie challenged how Trump's lawyers could claim that a document was Trump's personal property while also claiming that it was protected by executive privilege, which is only reserved for government records.
"If I'm wrong and I've been wrong before, there's an incongruity there," Dearie said.
The concern from Drearie is the latest roadblock in the documents scandal for Trump, who has hoped to undermine the DOJ's investigation and downplay the severity of taking classified records.
In September, Drearie requested evidence that the FBI planted documents in Mar-a-Lago or that the former president declassified records. Drearie's request for the information was overruled by the judge.
Thousands of documents need to be reviewed by Drearie, and Trump's lawyers were not able to find a vendor that could do the job. They argued in a court filing that the deadlines for handing over the documents were too strict and that they could not find a vendor willing to do the job.
The judge extended the deadline to December 16.
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