Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee to the bench in 2020, ruled Monday that federal investigators probing whether Trump mishandled classified documents will stop using the seized documents in their criminal probe, pending a review by a special master. . The Justice Department also asked Cannon to partially vacate her own decision so investigators could continue their review of the 103 most sensitive documents seized from Mar-a-Lago that contained classified markings, including TOP SECRET, the highest grading level. Trump and his lawyers have until Monday morning to respond to the request to continue the investigation into the documents.
The Justice Department’s appeal will be heard by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. In her 24-page ruling earlier this week, Cannon sided with Trump’s legal team that the independent review was necessary and wrote that a special master would review “potentially privileged material subject to claims of attorney-client and/or executive privilege ». The ruling allowed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to review potential national security risks posed by the seized file, even as criminal investigators were denied access. Cannon’s order was widely criticized by many in the legal community, including Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr. Trump, the judge wrote, faces “unfair potential harm through the improper disclosure of sensitive information to the public,” and a special master, Cannon said, could work to mitigate that potential harm. But in Thursday’s motion, which detailed its concerns, the Justice Department argued otherwise. that the interruption of their investigation caused serious harm to national security and that the review of the information in the records could not be carried out effectively without the involvement of criminal investigators. The investigation and the general public, prosecutors wrote, could be “irreparably harmed” by the suspension. “The Intelligence Community’s (“IC”) ongoing classification review and assessment are closely related to — and cannot be easily separated from — areas of investigation in the ongoing DOJ and FBI criminal investigation,” the Justice Department filing said. on Thursday, adding that it would be “too difficult to separate FBI personnel working in criminal investigation from those working in conjunction with other departments or agencies in the IC.” Thursday’s filing also revealed that the 103 classified documents had already been separated from the remaining thousands of seized records and that the Intelligence Community had indeed halted its analysis of the documents because of “uncertainty” caused by Cannon’s Monday order. FILE – An aerial view of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is seen near dusk on August 10, 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida. The newly declassified FBI document on the Mar-a-Lago investigation not only offers new details about the investigation, but also reveals details of the arguments his legal team plans to make. A May 25 letter from one of his lawyers attached as an exhibit to the affidavit takes a broad view of executive power, arguing that the commander-in-chief has absolute authority to declassify whatever he wants and that the primary law governing the handling of classified The information applies to other government officials but not to the president. Steve Helber/AP In his lawsuit, Trump claimed that the Justice Department’s search warrant that led to the Aug. 8 probe was “excessive” and that investigators obtained “putatively privileged” information. Cannon’s opinion earlier this week indicated she believed that claim warranted further consideration. Prosecutors strongly objected to that characterization and deployed a filter team to conduct its own review of the material. And on Thursday, they argued that special master review should not apply to classified records because such documents expressly belonged to the administration, not Trump.
“There is no justification for extending the writ and special-in-chief review to the classified records. The classification markings demonstrate on the face of the documents that these are government records and not Plaintiff’s personal records.” Investigators are looking into allegations that classified documents were mishandled when they were moved from the Trump White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence after the 2021 presidential transition. In three separate cases earlier this year that culminated in the investigation On August 8, the National Archives and the FBI discovered troves of documents from the Florida resort. They are also investigating whether Trump or his team obstructed the investigation by failing to properly respond to a grand jury subpoena, which prosecutors reiterated in their motion Thursday. Trump’s request for a special master came two weeks after the FBI took 33 items from a warehouse at the former president’s property and office. More than 100 classified documents were found in 13 boxes or containers, while three documents marked “confidential” and “secret” were taken from desks in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago office, the Justice Department revealed in earlier filings. The FBI also found 48 empty envelopes with “classified” banners along with newspaper and magazine articles, books and pieces of clothing stored in boxes or containers recovered from the warehouse. Both the classified documents and the empty files, prosecutors wrote Thursday, pose potential national security risks that warrant a continued investigation. “The FBI will primarily be responsible for investigating what material may have once been stored in these files and whether they may have been lost or tampered with—steps that, again, may require the use of grand jury subpoenas, search warrants, and other criminal investigative tools and could lead to evidence that would also be very important in furthering the criminal investigation,” they argued. To underscore the urgency of their request, the Justice Department specifically included a statement written by Alan Kohler, the FBI’s assistant director for the Counterintelligence Division. “The FBI needs to access the evidence, copy it, discern the appropriate [intelligence community] agency … to which it should be provided,” Kohler wrote. The statement is punishable by perjury. Cannon on Monday ordered the Justice Department and Trump’s legal team to submit potential candidates for the special master’s role by Friday. Trump, who has denied wrongdoing, hit back on social media at the Justice Department’s response, calling investigators “burglars” and praising Cannon’s initial decision, calling it “brilliant” and “courageous.” The judge noted in her ruling that the FBI’s filter team found medical and tax documents in the seized files and revealed that in two cases, potentially privileged information slipped through the filter and into the hands of investigators. The Justice Department has since asked a court to unseal a report compiled by the filter team.