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Rh security).

Appointment of a special master to review materials for claims of executive privilege would be inconsistent with principles of equity.

The former President has sought to invoke this Court’s equitable jurisdiction, see D.E. 1 at 14; D.E. 28 at 1, 6–8, but appointment of a special master to review the seized materials for claims of executive privilege would be fundamentally inequitable. First, to the extent the former President’s arguments rest on a claim that he has been deprived of his rights under the PRA to assert potential privilege claims, see D.E. 1 at 12, the former President forfeited the ability to rely on the PRA by failing to provide his records to NARA, as the law requires. Had the seized records been returned to NARA—upon the former President’s departure from office, or during the many months afterward in which NARA sought return of the missing records—Plaintiff could have at least tendered a claim of executive privilege to the Archivist with regard to any materials sought by DOJ. Indeed, that is precisely what occurred when DOJ sought access to the fifteen boxes that were returned to NARA in January 2022. See supra at 7. As described above, the government resorted to a search warrant only after the former President failed to return missing records as requested by NARA and then as required by a grand jury subpoena. See supra at 4–5, 8–10. The government’s seizure of these records through use of a search warrant is a direct result of Plaintiff’s own conduct, and this “inequitable conduct” “make[s] equitable relief inappropriate.” Ramirez v. Collier, 142 S. Ct. 1264, 1282 (2022).

Second, for the reasons described above, the government has an urgent interest in