It was updated Sept 21, 2022, 08:37pm.
An appeals court said Wednesday investigators from the Department of Justice can review about 100 classified documents taken from Mar-A-Lago, even as a court-appointed special master screens most of the seized records, in a blow to former President Donald Trump.
The White House is in Washington, DC.
A three-judge panel from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals partially stayed an earlier ruling that prevented the DOJ from accessing the seized Mar-A-Lago records.
The DOJ requested that the records that were marked as classified be excluded.
The panel, which included two Trump appointees and one Obama appointee, did not find any evidence that Trump declassified the materials.
Even if Trump declassified some of the documents, that wouldn't explain why he has a personal interest in them.
FBI agents seized documents from Trump's Mar-A-Lago club as part of a probe into whether he and his staff violated federal recordkeeping and obstruction laws. Cannon granted the request of Trump's legal team to stop the DOJ from reviewing the documents until a special master could screen them for executive and attorney-client privilege. The DOJ's appeal was filed after Cannon refused to revise her order and excluded classified documents. The government needs to be able to assess the possible unauthorized disclosure of the classified records. Trump had the power to declassify the materials when he was in office, but his lawyers did not claim that he did so.
The Mar-A-Lago case has a special master who is skeptical of declassification claims.
The DOJ wants the court to stop the special master from reviewing the classified documents.
The judge gave the special master to review the documents.
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