the justice department is considering its next steps after a federal judge today granted former president trump s request for that independent special master. judge aileen cannon who trump nominated to the bench said a third party is needed to review the items that the fbi seized from mar-a-lago. the doj is looking into whether the former president improperly kept classified and top secret documents at his florida estate. joins me now is cnn s sara murray and cara skinnal. walk us through the ruling? she s cited a number of reasons for why she feels the special master is necessary. she said there are swirling allegations of bias and media leaks and pointed to trump s individual interest in and need for this seized property and pointed to two instances where the investigative team was exposed to material that was later deemed potentially privileged so essentially saying we need more than just the filter team in place to ensure that the former president s rights are being pro
is. welcome to this special edition of the lead. i m kaitlan collins in for jake tapper. we start with our politics lead and a major victory for donald trump for now. a judge has now granted his request for a special master, allowing a third party attorney to come in and review the documents seized from mar-a-lago last month. the judge cited senchlg reasons for her decision, including the potential stigma that donald trump faces after the search plus what she calls, quote, swirling allegations of bias and media leaks. trump s lawyers argued he needed a special master because they couldn t trust the justice department, and in today s ruling, the judge said federal investigators can not continue reviewing the materials they took until the special master has finished their work. let s get straight to cnn s senior justice correspondent, evan perez. evan, i know this filing is 24 pages long. it came out on this holiday, but what are the main takeaways from it? kaitlan, the j
in the name of defense. speaking in favor of an amendment he had proposed to cut tens of billions of dollars from the budget. marco rubio had his own amendment that would raise defense spending without any spending cuts to pay for it. the national security of our country is the predominant obligation of our government. it is the one thing that the government can do. then there was ted cruz who didn t know whose side he was on. cruz was clearly torn. the senators stood quietly at the well of the senate chamber reading the text of the rubio amendment and checking his smartphone. cruz gave a thumbs up sign siding with rubio. neither of those amendments from cruz or rubio passed. in a way that s not important. the larger question is who ends up winning this fight within the republican party. is it rubio, the hawk who wants to pour more money in defense or paul the budget slasher who