The Department of Justice has officially filed a motion to appeal a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon appointing a special master to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI.
"Notice is hereby given that the United States of America, Defendant in the abovecaptioned matter, appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from the order of the district court entered on September 5, 2022," the appeal states. "Specifically, the government seeks a stay to the extent the Order (1) enjoins the further review and use for criminal investigative purposes of records bearing classification markings that were recovered pursuant to a court-authorized search warrant and (2) requires the government to disclose those classified records to a special master for review. The government respectfully requests that the Court rule on this motion promptly. If the Court does not grant a stay by Thursday, September 15, the government intends to seek relief from the Eleventh Circuit."
BREAKING: DOJ appeals Judge Cannon’s order appointing Trump special master in Mar-a-Lago case https://t.co/6GAuvx94dw
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) September 8, 2022
DOJ explains that this is a discrete set of "just over 100" already identified and isolated documents. pic.twitter.com/R3SWNvcDe8
— Chris “Subscribe to Law Dork!” Geidner (@chrisgeidner) September 8, 2022
Former President Donald Trump and his attorneys were granted a special master last week and argue one is necessary to restore trust in the process.
"They took everything they wanted to take, that's obviously evident. The injunction, which means that they have stopped all criminal investigations — was granted, which is a great win for the Trump team that is handling this matter. Additionally, we received an approval to get a special master, which was exactly what I had hoped would happen. The DOJ, as you may recall, was opposing this. They didn’t want it. And what the public had assumed was a delay was in fact that a judge mentioned this — the fact that DOJ was not willing to grant a special master when we requested it prior," Trump attorney Alina Habba said during an interview with Fox News last week.
The court has appointed a special master to review the material from the Mar-a-Lago raid. https://t.co/Mccm9CjcsZ It was the right decision. Unfortunately, Merrick Garland had to be forced again into this modest but important step to reassure the public. https://t.co/XAiASCXwIA
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) September 5, 2022