Justice Dept. asks appeals court to end Mar-a-Lago special master - The Washington Post

2 years ago 58

The Justice Department asked a national appeals court to reverse a Florida judge’s bid appointing a peculiar maestro to reappraisal documents seized from Donald Trump’s location and club, arguing that the erstwhile president had nary close to person the seized materials aft helium near bureau and that determination was nary ineligible ground for an extracurricular review.

While prosecutors had already appealed portions of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s peculiar maestro appointment, Friday was the archetypal clip they appealed the full tribunal order. If the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit sides with the government, the peculiar master’s reappraisal would halt — and transgression investigators erstwhile again would beryllium permitted to entree thousands of unclassified documents that FBI agents took from Mar-a-Lago successful August.

The authorities said successful its entreaty that those unclassified documents are captious to its ongoing transgression probe of imaginable mishandling of classified material, obstruction and demolition of authorities records, and could assistance them behaviour witnesser interviews and corroborate evidence.

“In short, the unclassified records that were stored collectively with records bearing classification markings whitethorn place who was liable for the unauthorized retention of these records, the applicable clip periods successful which records were created oregon accessed, and who whitethorn person accessed oregon seen them,” the filing reads.

The Atlanta-based appeals tribunal said Trump’s lawyers person until Nov. 10 to record their response. As portion of their appeal, Justice Department lawyers updated the fig of documents taken from Mar-a-Lago, which was earlier said to beryllium astir 11,000 but present is astir 13,000.

Trump’s lawyers asked 2 weeks aft the hunt for an extracurricular adept to sift done the seized materials — including 103 documents marked classified — to find whether immoderate are protected by attorney-client oregon enforcement privilege, and should beryllium shielded from transgression investigators.

Prosecutors argued in Friday’s 53-page filing that Trump has nary close to asseverate either signifier of privilege implicit the authorities documents, rendering the reappraisal by a Brooklyn-based national judge, Raymond J. Dearie, unnecessary.

Cannon had primitively ordered the peculiar maestro to reappraisal some the classified and nonclassified materials and barred the Justice Department from utilizing immoderate of the documents successful its transgression probe until that reappraisal was done. A sheet of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit overturned portion of that decision, which removed the classified materials from Dearie’s reappraisal and allowed investigators to usage those documents close away.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected a petition from Trump’s lawyers that asked it to reappraisal portion of the appeals court’s determination connected narrow, method grounds.

Cannon has said Dearie would person until December to implicit his reappraisal of the nonclassified documents.

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