Court grants Trump victory in documents probe
A US district court judge ruled late Thursday that the Justice Department cannot resume its investigation into classified documents retrieved from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, a controversial decision that delays the criminal investigation into the former president and could pose national security risks.
“The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in a timely and orderly manner,” wrote federal Judge Aileen Cannon in a 10-page ruling that refuted department officials’ central argument that the sensitive records contain highly classified defence information that could jeopardise national security.
Furthermore, Cannon nominated Senior District Judge Raymond Dearie, one of Trump’s legal team’s nominees, as the special master to review the data obtained by the FBI last month. Dearie, a Reagan nominee who served as a federal judge in New York since the 1980s, resigned in 2011 and is now a senior judge on the circuit. The Justice Department’s nominees were rejected by Trump.
Court grants Trump victory in documents probe
The Justice Department had requested that approximately 100 classified documents be excluded from the special master review process, highlighting that the highly sensitive material seized when the FBI executed a search warrant on Trump’s Palm Beach home on August 8 – recovering approximately 11,000 documents in total – had not been properly secured since Trump took them with him when he left the White House in 2021.
In response to the request, Cannon wrote, “There has been no real claim by the Government of any identified emergency or impending revelation of classified material deriving from Plaintiff’s purportedly unlawful detention of the confiscated items.” “Instead, and sadly, the unjustified revelations that float in the background have been media leaks following the underlying seizure.”
The Justice Department had also requested that Cannon decide on these issues by Thursday, or it will file an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Cannon’s ruling urged Dearie to complete the review by Nov. 30 – well after the Nov. 6 midterm elections, which stand to take some of the politically advantageous wind out of Democrats’ sails – though she did direct him to prioritise his review of the most highly sensitive documents, implying that the Justice Department could continue its investigation after those records are cleared.
During the special master’s review, the judge also mandated that Trump pay for Dearie’s work and urged the Justice Department to carry out additional inquiries, including “questioning witnesses and obtaining other information about the movement and storage of seized materials, including documents marked as classified, without discussing their contents.”
The verdict is a triumph for Trump, who is also being probed by the Justice Department and a House Select Committee for seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election and for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurgency at the United States Capitol.
Trump appeared emboldened in recent days by the Justice Department’s efforts to continue its investigation unhindered, sharing memes from conspiracy theory group QAnon on social media and holding a meeting on his Virginia golf course with his son, Eric Trump, and other close associates – only the second time he’s been in the Washington, D.C.-area since leaving the White House in January 2021.
Following Cannon’s decision, Trump sent at least a half-dozen fundraising letters and minimised the nature of the papers seized, claiming that the Justice Department grabbed his medical records and tax returns, among other personal documents.
During the special master’s review, the judge also mandated that Trump pay for Dearie’s work and urged the Justice Department to carry out additional inquiries, including “questioning witnesses and obtaining other information about the movement and storage of seized materials, including documents marked as classified, without discussing their contents.”
The decision is a triumph for Trump and comes as the former president is under investigation by the Justice Department and a House Select Committee for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising at the US Capitol and for attempting to sway the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
