The DOJ asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to block a third-party special master from reviewing classified documents it seized at former President Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate.
The Mar-a-Lago estate is owned by President Donald Trump.
The DOJ asked the appeals court to block the district judge's order that prevented the agency from reviewing 100 classified documents.
If Cannon allowed the agency to keep the classified documents, the DOJ would appeal her order granting a special master to review them.
Cannon ruled that Raymond Dearie, the former U.S. District Judge she appointed as special master, will review even classified documents.
Lawyers for Trump argued that the documents should be kept from the special master because he could have declassified them, but they didn't say he did.
Andrew Weissman, a former federal prosecutor, described Thursday's ruling on MSNBC as "outrageous and stupid."
The DOJ argued in its appeal that Cannon's order was "irreparably harms the government by prohibiting critical steps of an ongoing criminal investigation and unnecessarily compelling disclosure of highly sensitive records."
Considering that a majority of the judges on the 11th Circuit were appointed by Trump, it is not clear how long the case will take to be decided. If Cannon keeps his order, Dearie has been told to review the documents and prioritize the classified materials so that Cannon can release them to the DOJ earlier.
Cannon ruled on Thursday that he must pay the entire cost of the special master's review, rather than splitting it with the DOJ as Trump had requested.
Two weeks after the FBI searched Mar-A-Lago, Trump asked Cannon to create a special master. The search was part of an ongoing DOJ investigation into whether Trump brought more than 11,000 White House documents back to Florida with him rather than turning them over to the National Archives. Despite being subpoenaed to turn over all the classified documents they had despite being subpoenaed to do so, Trump's attorneys did not follow the DOJ's request to store all the documents in a secure area. Federal prosecutors have fought Trump's request for a special master, arguing that it would hinder the investigation and that he doesn't have the right to shield documents under executive privilege.
The investigation of Trump's Mar-A-Lago is currently being led by a special master.
The judge in the Mar- A-Lago case rejected the DOJ's request to exclude classified documents.
The DOJ wants the court to stop the special master from reviewing the classified documents.
The DOJ wants to block the special master from seeing classified documents.
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