The historic federal criminal case against Former President Donald Trump has been initially assigned to a judge he appointed who faced criticism over her decision to grant the Republican's request for an independent arbiter to review documents obtained during an FBI search of his Florida estate.

A person familiar with the matter says the case has been assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a former federal prosecutor who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020 and sits in Fort Pierce.

The move seems a rare bit of good news for Trump given rulings last year she issued in his favour and in opposition to the Justice Department.

Cannon's profile was thrust into the spotlight when she issued what many legal experts saw as an extraordinary decision to approve a so-called special master to review the documents seized by the FBI.

Some experts said the judge gave undue deference to the former president and unnecessarily put on hold certain investigative work by the Justice Department.

As part of that case, Cannon temporarily barred federal agents and prosecutors from reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during the search.

Her order was ultimately thrown out by a federal appeals court, which found she overstepped.

The federal appeals court ended the independent review of documents.