search warrant for potential attorney–client privilege. Federal District Court judge Aileen Cannon, before whom the matter was set to be argued, expressed she was likely to agree. On September 5, 2022 Cannon granted the request, which was appealed by the Department of Justice on September 8, on the grounds that "[this] order would irreparably harm the government and the public by unnecessarily requiring the government to share highly classified materials with a special master". On September 12, the DOJ approved one of Trump's nominees, Raymond J. Dearie, for the special master role. On September 15, Cannon appointed Dearie to the role, a move which prompted general outrage from legal experts, who called both the ruling and Cannon's evident partiality "a stupid and profoundly partisan piece of work". Dearie's objectivity in this case was also questioned by news reports about the controversial role of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, of which Dearie was a member, during the FBI surveillance of Carter Page in the Crossfire Hurricane affair; according to insider sources, Trump's lawyers and advisers have purportedly expressed hope that Dearie has since become "a deep skeptic of the FBI". However, soon after Dearie's appointment, frictions ensued when Trump's legal team did not provide any proof of Trump's actually having declassified the documents, as he has repeatedly claimed to justify their presence at Mar-a-Lago, despite Dearie's requests. Instead, Dearie declared that if the Justice Department made "an acceptable case that they remain classified, then he would be inclined to regard them as classified" and thus not eligible for returning them to Trump's possession. Likewise, Dearie demanded proof of Trump's claims that certain documents were "planted" by the FBI during the raid. Legal experts believed Trump's demand for a special master was a strategic error, according to The New York Times. On September 29, Cannon ruled that Trump allegedly did not have to present evidence to the claim that the FBI had "planted" evidence against him, claiming, "There shall be no separate requirement on Plaintiff at this stage, prior to the review of any of the seized materials. … The Court’s Appointment Order did not contemplate that obligation," and extended the deadline for the files' review from November 30 to December 16, drawing widespread criticism from legal experts. Additionally, Trump complained through his legal team that Dearie was "exceeding his authority" with his demand. On October 8, 2022, The New York Times