- Trumpworld suspects Raymond Dearie may be skeptical of FBI operations after experiencing a bad one.
- Dearie was one of the judges who signed off on surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Trump advisors are betting that special master Raymond Dearie's negative experience with the FBI during its controversial investigation into Trump campaign aide Carter Page may mean he's as skeptical of federal investigators as they are.
Two anonymous sources floated the theory to Axios that Dearie's possible skepticism of the FBI made him former President Donald Trump's top choice, citing his nearly decade-long run on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as a key selling point.
Dearie, a former chief judge of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, has been tasked with sorting through the 11,000-plus documents law enforcement agents recovered from Mar-a-Lago and separating out anything he believes may be protected by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.
The third-party review, which is to be completed by November 30 and must be paid for by Trump, doesn't involve passing any kind of judgment on the FBI.
Still, Trumpworld operatives are banking on Dearie harboring some disdain for the law enforcement agency following mistakes made several years ago.
Dearie was one of five Republican-appointed judges who signed off on FISA warrants to surveil a former Trump advisor, Carter Page as part of an investigation into his ties to the Russian government. Two of the four approved warrants were later declared invalid after the Justice Department inspector general found a series of misstatements and omissions in the applications by the FBI to get the court warrants to eavesdrop on Page.
Trump and his allies will soon learn whether Dearie is on the same page as they are.
—Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 16, 2022
Dearie asked Trump's lawyers to submit a proposed agenda for their first special master meeting by close of business on Monday, and scheduled a preliminary conference for 2 pm on Tuesday in Brooklyn, New York.