The Department of Justice has asked a federal appeals court to override Judge Cannon’s Friday ruling barring feds from reviewing documents seized from the Mar-a-Lago resort, arguing that delaying the probe any longer could cause “irreparable harm” to the nation.
“[The] criminal investigation is itself essential to the government’s effort to identify and mitigate potential national security risks,” the DoJ appeal, filed before the 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, reads.
The DoJ appeal goes on to reiterate the agency’s allegations of potential criminal wrongdoing by the former president, saying “the record makes clear that the materials were stored in an unsecure manner over a prolonged period.”
“The court’s injunction itself prevents the government from even beginning to take necessary steps to determine whether improper disclosures might have occurred or may still occur,” the appeal complains.
The DoJ accuses Judge Cannon of “fundamentally erring” with her decisions to appoint a special master in the case and to grant an injunction in the Trump probe, arguing that the latter ruling “impedes the government’s efforts to protect the nation’s security.”
Cannon’s back-to-back pro-Trump rulings Thursday and Friday enraged the Democratic Party establishment, with pundits issuing bitter diatribes accusing her of being a Trump plant (Cannon was appointed to the court in late 2020 by the Republican president), and alleging that her judicial opinion “is not grounded in the law.”
17 September 2022, 05:37 GMT
The Biden administration has not commented on the latest developments, and earlier pledged to stay out of the probe, which seeks to determine whether Trump or his aides engaged in the criminal removal of classified government papers from the White House, or attempted to obstruct justice by concealing records which the FBI sought to obtain earlier this year using a grand jury subpoena.
The Trump legal team won its first major legal victory in the case last week after Cannon granted its request to appoint a special master to review the seized documents, which halted the feds’ review. The court then slapped down a DoJ appeal to continue studying the papers.
The special master in the case, US District Judge Raymond J. Dearie, has been granted the authority to determine if any of the 11,000 pages of papers should be excluded from the probe on the grounds of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege – the authority granted to members of the executive branch allowing them maintain confidential communications and to resist certain forms of oversight by the judicial and legislative branches of government.
Dearie has summoned the parties in the case for a preliminary conference in Brooklyn, New York City on Tuesday. He has until November 30 to complete his job – six weeks longer than the DoJ requested be allowed.
Donald Trump has spent the past month attacking the FBI over the August 8 Mar-a-Lago raid, and denies any wrongdoing in the DoJ case. The former president claims that the Biden administration and the “sleazy” Democrats are using the Mar-a-Lago probe as another means to try to stop him from running for office again in 2024 after the collapse of the Russiagate investigation and two failed impeachments.
Trump has also accused the FBI of taking his personal documents, including passports and “highly confidential” medical files, claimed that the FBI refused to allow his lawyers access to the mansion during the raid, and accused agents of looking through his wife’s wardrobe and private undergarments.