The U.S. Dept. of Justice on Friday formally appealed the appointment of a special master by federal District Court Judge Aileen Cannon to review all items federal agents retried from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort, including 103 classified and top secret documents.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with DOJ earlier, blocking the special master, handpicked by Donald Trump’s legal team, from reviewing the top secret documents, stating the president’s attorneys had offered nothing of substance to prove they were not classified documents.
Now the Dept. of Justice is asking the appeals court to rescind the the appointment of the special master entirely, CNN reports.
“The special master – Raymond Dearie, a senior federal judge based in Brooklyn – has already started the process for the review of about 11,000 documents taken from Mar-a-Lago in August. If the department is ultimately successful in its appeal, the special master could be ordered to halt the review process.”
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance notes that DOJ’s appeal “ask[s] the court to find Judge Cannon erred by exercising jurisdiction at all in this matter & was wrong to restrict DOJ’s use of all material seized & was wrong to order the use of a special master.”
If it does it would be yet another embarrassing rebuke for Judge Cannon, who has been accused by top legal experts of not applying the law but favoritism to the former president who appointed her.
On Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court refused Donald Trump’s emergency motion to intervene and block DOJ access to the 103 classified documents.
This is a breaking news and developing story.