A federal appeals court says a lower court must dismiss a lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump challenging a search warrant on his Mar-a-Lago estate, seen here in August. .
Steve Helber/AP
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Steve Helber/AP
A federal appeals court says a lower court must dismiss a lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump challenging a search warrant on his Mar-a-Lago estate, seen here in August. .
Steve Helber/AP
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Thursday ended an independent case review the documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, removing a roadblock that the Justice Department said had delay its criminal investigation into government retention of classified information.
The three-judge panel’s decision represents a significant victory for federal prosecutors, clearing the way for them to use, as part of their investigation, the entire group of documents seized during the Marauding Marquis. -a-Lago August 8 by the FBI. It also led to a strong rebuttal of the arguments of Trump’s lawyers, who for months have said the former president has the right to so-called “special employer” conduct neutral reviews of thousands of people. documents taken from the property.
The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit was anticipated in light of the skeptical questions that judges directed at a Trump attorney during arguments last week, and by because two of the three judges on the panel ruled in favor of the Department of Justice in an earlier dispute over particular employers.
The special master lawsuit came along with an ongoing investigation looking into possible criminal mishandling of defense information as well as possible efforts to obstruct that investigation. Attorney General Merrick Garland last month appointed Jack Smith, a veteran corruption prosecutor, as the special prosecutor overseeing that investigation.
It is not yet clear how long the investigation will last, or who, if any, may be charged. But the investigation has shown signs of intensifying, with investigators questioning multiple Trump associates about documents and granting immunity to a key ally to secure his testimony before the grand jury. federal jury. And the appellate court’s decision would likely speed up the investigation by shortening the process of external records review.
The particular employer conflict began just weeks after the FBI raid, when Trump sued in federal court in Florida asking for the appointment of an independent arbitrator to review about 13,000 documents the Justice Department released. was taken from the house.
A federal judge, Aileen Cannon, accepted the Trump team’s request, naming Veteran Brooklyn judge Raymond Dearie as special owner and task him with reviewing the seized records and filtering out of the criminal investigation any material that might be concealed by claims of executive privilege or attorney’s privilege- client.
She also barred the Justice Department from using in its criminal investigation any confiscated records, including about 100 records marked as classified, until Dearie has completed her work.
The Justice Department objected to the appointment, saying it was an unnecessary obstacle to their criminal investigation and saying Trump had no credible basis to invoke attorney-client privilege. or executive privilege to conceal records from investigators.
It sought, as a first step, to regain access to classified documents. A federal appeals panel sided with prosecutors in September, allowing the Justice Department to continue reviewing the classified documents.
The department also pushed for access to a much larger trove of unclassified documents, saying those files could contain important evidence for their investigation.
