On Thursday the U.S. Department of Justice announced its plan to appeal Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to appoint a special master to former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago investigation.
The news: When Cannon granted Trump’s request for a special master, she put a temporary pause on the FBI’s ability to review the documents found in Mar-a-Lago until the special master had reviewed them.
- The DOJ claimed that the judge’s decision to pause the FBI’s review would cause “irreparable harm” to national security.
- “(I)n order to assess the full scope of potential harms to national security resulting from the improper retention of the classified records, the government must assess the likelihood that improperly stored and classified information may have been accessed by others and compromised,” the filing said.
- If Cannon does not appeal her decision by herself by next Thursday, the DOJ would request that an appeals court blocks her order, per The New York Times.
Details: Trump’s legal team says that as a former president, Trump has executive powers that make his possession of the documents legal.
- However, the DOJ disagrees, stating that the records are not his personal property.
- “The classified records are government property over which the Executive Branch has control and in which Plaintiff has no cognizable property interest.”
A compromise: The DOJ’s appeal doesn’t completely undo Cannon’s initial decision.
- The DOJ stated that they will still allow an independent party to review a number of records, but want to set aside around 100 documents that they claim contain sensitive information.
- The DOJ states that “those aspects of the Order will cause the most immediate and serious harms to the government and the public.”