The Justice Department said Thursday that it will appeal a federal judge’s decision ordering the selection of a special master to review documents taken by the FBI last month from former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.
The department announced the move in a short legal filing after receiving unexpected rhetorical cover earlier this week from Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr.
“Notice is hereby given that the United States of America, Defendant in the above captioned matter, appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from the order of the district court entered on September 5, 2022,” the three-page filing said.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Monday that an independent third party should review documents taken by the FBI on Aug. 8 from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump argues some of those records are shielded by executive privilege, attorney-client privilege or other legal protections.
Cannon delivered the unexpected win for Trump after the 45th president alleged that the FBI raid was part of a long-running “witch hunt.”
The Justice Department will appeal a federal judge’s decision ordering the selection of a special master to review documents taken by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago.DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE/AFP via Getty Images
US District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that an independent third party should review the documents.
“In addition to being deprived of potentially significant personal documents, which alone creates a real harm, plaintiff faces an unquantifiable potential harm by way of improper disclosure of sensitive information to the public,” Cannon ruled.
But critics of the ruling said that a special master was unnecessary in the case, which is focused on whether Trump mishandled government records — including classified information — after leaving office last year.
Barr, who served as Trump’s final Senate-confirmed attorney general, slammed the judge’s ruling Tuesday as “deeply flawed.”
Bill Barr said he does not believe that the ruling will hold up.Getty Images
“I don’t think the appointment of a special master is going to hold up, but even if it does, I don’t see it fundamentally changing the trajectory,” he told Fox News. “In other words, I don’t think it changes the ball game so much as maybe we’ll have a rain delay for a couple of innings.”
“I think the fundamental dynamics of the case are set,” Barr added, “which is the government has very strong evidence of what it needs to determine whether charges [are] appropriate, which is government documents were taken, classified information was taken and not handled appropriately. And they are looking into — and there’s some evidence to suggest — that they were deceived. And none of that really relates to the content of documents. It relates to the fact that there were documents there and the fact that they were classified, and the fact that they were subpoenaed and were never delivered.”
Source link: https://nypost.com/2022/09/08/doj-appeals-special-master-order-for-mar-a-lago-documents/