President Trump appears set to notch a win in his quest for a “special master” to review the documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago compound. That possibility emerged just one day after the release of an affidavit that sketched out a criminal case against him, albeit in redacted form. 

On Saturday, a federal district court judge, Aileen Cannon, expressed her “preliminary intent to appoint a special master in this case” and notified both Mr. Trump and the Department of Justice that she plans to hold a hearing on Thursday on the matter. Both sides will be required to brief her on the appropriateness of a special master before that hearing. 

The DOJ and FBI are expected to argue that its own internal “filter team” is sufficient to adjudicate which documents taken from Mar-a-Lago are protected by attorney-client privilege, and thus shielded from being used in the case against Mr. Trump. 

In addition to indicating that she is likely to grant Mr. Trumps’ request for a special master, Judge Cannon’s preliminary order also directed the government to provide “a more detailed” inventory of the items taken from Mar-a-Lago and to update the court on the status of the review of those materials.   

In his “Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that an internal FBI team would be inadequate and that “only an evaluation by a neutral reviewer, a Special Master, can secure the sanctity of these privileged materials.”

Judge Cannon’s preliminary order comes after a late night Friday filing from Mr. Trump’s lawyers providing further legal arguments on her ability to intervene in the case, given that it is currently being handled by a federal magistrate judge, Bruce Reinhart. Given her response, it appears likely that she found those arguments persuasive.