WASHINGTON (Washington Insider Magazine)– On Wednesday a federal appeals court gave permission to the Justice Department to use the classified documents that were retrieved from Donald Trump’s mansion in Florida as part of its ongoing criminal investigation, clearly rejecting his legal claims.
The Justice Department has won a solid victory all because of the decision of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which enables investigators to continue looking into the records as they decide on filing criminal charges for keeping top-secret records at Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s tenure concluded. By removing an injunction against a crucial component of the department’s investigation, the court removed a barrier that could have potentially delayed the probe for weeks.
The appeals court strictly rejected the possibility of Trump having an “individual interest in or need for” the 100 documents (approximately), marked classified that were seized by the FBI while searching the Palm Beach property in August and noted pointedly that Trump had not given any proof of declassification of the sensitive records, as he claimed as recently as Wednesday.
The government had argued that the U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling temporarily stopped the investigators from making use of the records in their inquiry and had hampered their investigation and disregarded considerations for national security. Cannon, a Trump appointee said that the hold would continue in place while a separate assessment by an independent arbitrator she had appointed on Trump team’s request to review the records was conducted.
The appeals panel agreed with the concerns raised by the Justice Department.
The public had a keen interest in ensuring that the keeping of the secret documents did not cause “exceptionally grave damage to the national security,” they wrote in their letter. Determining that necessarily includes reviewing the papers, figuring out who had access to them and when, and figuring out which (if any) sources or methods were compromised, they stated.
An order that delayed or prevented the criminal investigation from making use of the classified materials risks inflicting real and severe harm on the US and the public, they mentioned.
For the 11th Circuit, Andrew Brasher and Britt Grant, two of the three judges who gave the ruling on Wednesday, were nominated by Trump. Judge Robin Rosenbaum was former President Barack Obama’s suggestion.
Trump’s lawyers have not responded to any request for comment via email if they would appeal the decision. The Justice Department as well mde no immediate comments.
About 11,000 documents, including about 100 with classification marks, were taken by the FBI in the previous month during a search of the Palm Beach club ordered by the court. Even though it is not clear if Trump or anybody else would face charges, a criminal investigation has been launched to find out whether the papers were compromised or mishandled.
