The Justice Department is seeking to overturn a federal judge’s ruling that blocked investigators from reviewing a range of highly-sensitive documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s estate.
The Justice Department is seeking to overturn a federal judge’s ruling that blocked investigators from reviewing a range of highly-sensitive documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Prosecutors said in a new court filing that U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to temporarily halt the FBI’s ability to probe the ex-president’s handling and storage of classified materials would cause “irreparable harm” to efforts by the intelligence community to protect national security interests.
“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 classified information may have been accessed by others and compromised,” Justice Department counterintelligence chief Jay Bratt argued in the filing. “But that inquiry is a core aspect of the FBI’s criminal investigation.”
Cannon’s attempt to enjoin the FBI investigation while permitting a parallel national security review of the seized documents was simply unworkable, Justice Department officials argued.
“uch bifurcation would make little sense even if it were feasible, given that the same senior DOJ and FBI officials are ultimately responsible for supervising the criminal investigation and for ensuring that DOJ and FBI are coordinating appropriately with the [Intelligence Community] on its classification review and assessment,” Bratt added.
In fact, prosecutors indicated the intelligence community had halted its review of the seized materials altogether — including an assessment of whether they, or any sources and methods, had been compromised — due to “uncertainty” around Cannon’s ruling.
Underscoring its case for allowing the intelligence and law enforcement components of the probe to work together, DOJ contended that it was urgent the FBI be permitted to help investigate dozens of empty folders found at Mar-a-Lago with classification markings to determine what they once held and whether their contents “may have been lost or compromised.”
While Trump has contended that he should be able to assert executive privilege over many or all of the records seized from his Florida home, the Justice Department says those claims clearly fall short when classified information is at issue.
“Even if a former President might in some circumstances be able to assert executive privilege against the Executive Branch’s review and use of its own documents, any such assertion would fail as to the classified records at issue here,” Bratt wrote.
In its filing, the Justice Department asks Cannon to exclude all documents with classification markings from any special master review while the government appeals her ruling to the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The filing is the latest volley in a weeks-long legal drama following the FBI’s seizure of records from Mar-a-Lago. And it underscores the careful path the Justice Department is attempting to tread as it pursues a criminal investigation that has not only entangled the former president but, thanks to Cannon’s order, raised profound questions about the separation of powers.
The move by the Justice Department appeared aimed at streamlining its legal case in case it has to seek emergency relief from the 11th Circuit, which leans heavily in favor of Republican appointees. Six of the court’s 11 active judges were appointed by Trump.
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The DOJ is seeking to overturn a federal judge’s ruling that blocked investigators from reviewing a range of highly-sensitive documents seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.https://t.co/0DAubMwK9u
— POLITICO (@politico) September 8, 2022
BREAKING: DOJ moves to have Cannon stay the part of her ruling that interferes with natl security review involving "classified documents," and simultaneously files a protective notice of appeal in case she does not rule in its favor by 9/15.
— Andrew Weissmann 🌻 (@AWeissmann_) September 8, 2022
The DOJ brief criticizing the Special Master ruling is a work of art. I’ve read some great DOJ briefs but this is among the best. Garland brought the A team
(Now admittedly, it was an easy target. But still, just in tone & sophistication &clarity & law)https://t.co/LHJaai5T2v
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) September 8, 2022
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