A US judge said she intends on granting former President Donald Trump's request to appoint a special master to oversee a review of materials seized on 8 August from his Florida home during an FBI raid.
US District Judge Aileen M Cannon, who was nominated by Mr Trump in 2020, on Saturday also directed the Justice Department to submit under seal more details "specifying all property seized pursuant to the search warrant."
Mr Trump had demanded the Justice Department provide him with a more detailed property receipt outlining items the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago home during its search and asked investigators to return any items outside the scope of the search warrant.
Ms Cannon gave the government until Tuesday to file a response to Mr Trump's request for a special master and set a hearing for Thursday.
Her order said she had not made a final determination on Trump's request, but it was her "preliminary intent" to appoint a special master.
A special master can sometimes be appointed in highly sensitive cases to go through seized materials and ensure that investigators do not review privileged information.
America's most closely held secrets
The Justice Department on Friday disclosed it was investigating Mr Trump for removing White House records because it believed he illegally held documents including some involving intelligence-gathering and clandestine human sources - among America's most closely held secrets.
In the affidavit, an unidentified FBI agent said the agency reviewed and identified 184 documents "bearing classification markings" containing "national defense information" after Mr Trump in January returned 15 boxes of government records sought by the US National Archives.
The search was part of a federal investigation into whether Mr Trump illegally removed and kept documents when he left office in January 2021 after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden and whether Mr Trump tried to obstruct the probe.
Risk assessment of recovered materials
The US intelligence community will also assess the potential risk to national security of disclosure of materials recovered during the search, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The letter dated Friday from National Intelligence Director (DNI) Avril Haines to House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff and Oversight Committee chair Carolyn Maloney also said the Justice Department and DNI "are working together to facilitate a classification review" of materials including those recovered during the search.
Mr Schiff and Ms Maloney said in a joint statement they were pleased the government was "assessing the damage caused by the improper storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago." Politico reported the letter earlier.
Ms Haines said DNI "will also lead an Intelligence Community (IC) assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents" including those seized.
A spokesman for Mr Trump, Taylor Budowich, accused Mr Schiff of being reckless with US intelligence and asserted Democrats had "weaponised the intel community against President Trump with selective and dishonest leaks."
Ms Haines wrote DNI will closely coordinate with the Justice Department to "ensure this IC assessment is conducted in a manner that does not unduly interfere with DOJ's ongoing criminal investigation."
Mr Trump, a Republican who is considering another presidential run in 2024, has described the court-approved search at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach as politically motivated and on Friday again described it as a "break-in."
