(NewsNation) — Federal Judge Raymond Dearie is the lone special master candidate it appears both the Justice Department and Donald Trump’s legal team would agree to have review classified documents seized by the FBI during its Mar-a-Lago search.
Dearie, a former U.S. District Court judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, has decades of legal experience, which includes having served as the chief justice of the U.S. District Court for New York’s Eastern District and on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Dearie was born in New York in 1944. He received a bachelor’s degree from Fairfield University in 1966 and completed a law degree from St. John’s University in 1969.
Upon receiving his law degree, Dearie worked as a private practice attorney for two years before securing a position in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. By 1980, he was the chief assistant to the U.S. district attorney in New York’s Eastern District. In 1982, he ascended to the position where he stayed for four years before being nominated to the bench by Reagan.
Dearie retired in 2011 and now works as a senior judge in Circuit Court.
Trump’s legal team submitted Dearie and former Florida Deputy Attorney General Paul Huck Jr. The Justice Department submitted District Court Judge Barbara Jones or retired Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals Thomas Griffith.
Dearie has emerged as the candidate on whom the two sides appear to share common ground.
It is now on Federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon to either select Dearie to be the special master, or choose one of the other three candidates submitted by Trump and the Justice Department.
Yet the selection of a special master will likely not end the two-sided feud over what the role of the special master should be in the review of documents. Last week, the two sides were quite far apart on key issues of the special master, including issues of privilege review, classified document review and a review deadline.
