The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to overturn a Florida judge’s order appointing a special master to review documents seized from Donald Trump’s home and club, arguing that the ex-president had no right to possess the confiscated materials after leaving office and that there was no legal basis for an external review.
While prosecutors had previously appealed parts of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s special appointment, Friday was the first time they appealed the entire court order. If the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit sides with the government, the special master’s review would stop, and criminal investigators would once again have access to thousands of unclassified documents that agents of the FBI took Mar-a-Lago in August.
The government said in its appeal that these unclassified documents are critical to its ongoing criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified material, the obstruction and destruction of government records, and could help them conduct witness interviews and corroborate evidence.
Trump’s Special Masters and Mar-a-Lago Documents: What You Need to Know
“In short, unclassified records that were stored collectively with records bearing classification marks can identify who was responsible for the unauthorized retention of those records, the relevant time periods in which they were created or the records were accessed, and who may have accessed or viewed them,” the filing says.
The appeals court in Atlanta said Trump’s lawyers have until Nov. 10 to file their response. As part of his appeal, Justice Department lawyers updated the number of documents taken from Mar-a-Lago, which was previously said to be about 11,000, but is now about 13,000.
Trump’s lawyers asked two weeks after the search for an outside expert to sift through the seized materials, including 103 classified documents, to determine whether any were protected by attorney-client privilege or the executive branch and should be protected from criminal investigators.
The witness who says Trump asked him to move boxes was a former White House staffer
Prosecutors argued in Friday’s 53-page filing that Trump is not entitled to claim any form of privilege over government documents, making a review by a federal judge in Brooklyn, Raymond J. Dearie.
Cannon had originally ordered the special master to review both the classified and unclassified materials and barred the Justice Department from using any of the documents in its criminal investigation until such a review was done. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit overturned part of that decision, which removed the classified materials from Dearie’s review and allowed investigators to use those documents immediately.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected a request by Trump’s lawyers asking it to review part of the appeals court’s decision on limited technical grounds.
Cannon said Dearie would have until December to complete his review of the unclassified documents.