Appeals court rules Trump-appointed judge ‘improperly’ ordered special master

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a harsh rebuke Thursday to Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon, ordering that she erred when she appointed a “special master” to review government documents seized at Mar-a-Lago.

A unanimous decision by a three-judge panel halts review of hundreds of classified and other documents seized during an FBI raid on the president’s private club amid a Justice Department investigation.

It marks a significant victory for the Justice Department, whose lawyers were angered by the original decision and have already succeeded in allowing the government to use seized classified documents in its ongoing investigation.

The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the warrant is executed. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so,’ the court wrote.

He said that doing so would “violate the fundamental limitations of the separation of powers.”

The court ruled that the district court judge “improperly exercised equal jurisdiction” and dismissed the proceedings.

The searing opinion said the District Court lacked jurisdiction to prevent the government from using “lawfully seized records in a criminal investigation.”

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and attacked the FBI’s search of his home as part of a “witch hunt” against him.

The search came after months of back and forth between Trump’s team and National Archives and Records Administration officials over materials removed from the White House when Trump left office.

The FBI finally searched the property in August after a court approved a search warrant.

Trump’s lawyers had argued that a special master was needed to classify potential privilege claims, referring to both attorney-client and executive privilege matters.

But the government was already reviewing the materials to filter out any attorney-client material, and the Justice Department said it was President Joe Biden who had the authority to enforce the privilege.

Two of the judges on the three-judge panel had already ruled in favor of the government. All were Republican appointees.

Cannon had appointed New York Chief Judge Raymond Dearie to review the materials, and work began even as the two sides battled over the decision in court.

That fight came after Trump filed a lawsuit in federal court in Florida. Cannon also ruled that the feds could not use the seized material in their investigation, pending work from the special master. An Appeals Court panel ruled against that decision in September.

It was just the latest legal strike against Trump in recent days.

After a years-long legal saga, the House Ways and Means Committee finally got the information from Trump’s tax return this week, after the Supreme Court refused to intervene, allowing the taxpayers’ rulings to stand. lower courts. The panel is now six years into their comebacks.

Prosecutors made closing arguments in a lawsuit against Trump and his company before a New York jury on Thursday, saying his company “cultivated a culture of fraud and deception” by awarding benefits to mask its full compensation.

The court’s 21-page ruling even takes up Trump’s contention that he has a “possessory interest” in the documents.

‘Even if the plaintiff’s theory were correct… personal interest or ownership of a seized document is not synonymous with the need for its return. In most search warrants, the government seizes property that unequivocally belongs to the subject of a search,’ the panel noted.