Bill Barr blasts 'deeply flawed' special master appointment in Trump, DOJ case

Former Attorney General William Barr said on Tuesday that the decision of a federal judge to appoint a "special master" to review documents the FBI took from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate is "deeply flawed" and doubted it would have a significant effect on the case in the long run.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, granted the former president's request to appoint a "special master" on Monday. Trump sought the return of the materials the FBI took from his estate, but Cannon declined to order their return, according to The Hill. She did, however, halt the Department of Justice's review of the materials and grant the special master discretion to "review the seized property, manage assertions of privilege and make recommendations thereon, and evaluate claims for return of property."

Speaking to Fox News' Martha MacCallum, Barr criticized the ruling, calling it "deeply flawed," but added "I don't think the appointment of a special master is going to hold up but even if it does, I don’t see it fundamentally changing the [case's] trajectory."

"Can the president bar DOJ from reviewing the documents?" he asked. "The answer to that I think is clearly no."

The former AG did, however, express hope that the DOJ would ultimately opt against prosecuting Trump.

"Even if they can technically make the case, there's another step, which is, prudentially, do they want to do it?" he continued. "I hope they don't do it."

Trump, meanwhile, derided the DOJ following Cannon's ruling on his social media platform, Truth Social.

"Remember, it takes courage and 'guts' to fight a totally corrupt Department of 'Justice' and the FBI," he wrote. "They are being pushed to do the wrong things by many sinister and evil outside sources. Until impartiality, wisdom, fairness, and courage are shown by them, our Country can never come back or recover — it will be reduced to being a Third World Nation!"