The government’s latest motion strongly suggests the Biden administration is all-in on pursuing a criminal case against the former president.
Hiding behind the horror of 9/11, the Biden administration demands that a federal judge and the country trust its targeting of a top political opponent—all while leaking details of classified documents to a pliant press.
This development and six others flow from recent court filings in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to obtain a special master’s oversight of the FBI’s seizure of thousands of documents and personal effects from his Mar-a-Lago home. The government doesn’t want to allow an independent review of the documents it’s seized. Trump’s legal team does.
First, The Backdrop
Three days after the August 8, 2022, raid om Trump’s Florida home, an attorney representing the former president spoke with Jay Bratt, the chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. Bratt has apparently been leading the investigation into the former president.
Trump’s lawyer asked Bratt “to agree to the appointment of a Special Master to protect the integrity of privileged documents.” Bratt refused. A week-and-a-half later, Trump filed a separate action in a Florida district court seeking judicial oversight and the appointment of a special master.
Federal judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, granted that motion last week, holding a special master shall be appointed to review the seized property, “manage assertions of privilege and make recommendations thereon, and evaluate claims for return of property.” Significantly, Judge Cannon also entered an injunction prohibiting the government from using the documents “for criminal investigative purposes pending resolution of the special master’s review process.” The court then ordered the parties to recommend individuals to fill the special master role, along with proposed procedures for the process by last Friday.
DOJ Files a Notice of Appeal
Before submitting the list of proposed special masters and the other details ordered by Judge Cannon, the Department of Justice filed a notice of appeal with the trial court, which the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals then docketed, starting the appeal process. Of interest, here, the clerk of court entered a corrected notice of appeal on behalf of the government, indicating the appeal was “interlocutory.”
Generally speaking, an “interlocutory appeal” is filed before the proceedings in the lower court are final. The right to appeal interlocutorily is limited, but federal rules of procedure provide for jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal where a party challenges the issuance of an injunction.
In this case, because the Biden administration seeks to challenge the trial court’s issuance of a preliminary injunction barring the government from using the seized materials “for criminal investigative purposes pending resolution of the special master’s review process,” the Eleventh Circuit has jurisdiction to...
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There is no reason for an appeal for the DOJ except that shows they are holding documents and records that they should not be holding, and they do not want to give them up. It is clear this was wrong under previous SCOTUS and other Judge rulings.
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