Merrick Garland Moves To Block Judge’s Order Stopping Trump Probe
The US Justice Department filed a motion asking a federal judge to stay her order halting the probe of former President Donald Trump until a special master is named. DOJ asked for a stay on her order for the classified information but agreed with her order for a special master for attorney-client privilege documents.
The Department gave the judge until Sept 15th to issue a stay or they intend to appeal her decision with the appeals court in Atlanta.
“The classified records — a discrete set of just over 100 documents — have already been segregated from the other seized records and are being maintained separately,” the department said in the filing.
“Uncertainty regarding the bounds of the court’s order and its implications for the activities of the FBI has caused the Intelligence Community, in consultation with DOJ, to pause temporarily this critically important work,” the department wrote.
“In 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.
“But that inquiry is a core aspect of the FBI’s criminal investigation.
“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,” DOJ wrote.
Judge Allen Cannon’s ruling stopped all review of the documents seized by the Department of Justice in its criminal investigation of Trump for mishandling classified documents and obstruction.
According to CNN, the ruling: “Orders a third-party attorney, from outside the government, be brought in to review the materials that were taken from Trump’s home and resort in Florida.
“It also halts the Justice Department from continuing its review of the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago “pending completion of the special master’s review or further Court order.
“Trump’s lawyers argued that a special master was needed because they don’t trust the Justice Department to fairly identify privileged materials that would need to be excluded from the ongoing criminal probe,” CNN said.
MORE: DOJ has asked Judge Cannon to stay parts of her order, saying the national secyrity review is inextricably linked tot he criminal investigation and can't be seaprated. https://t.co/S6YpkQIHOI pic.twitter.com/nrjjtRovbP
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 8, 2022
MORE: DOJ also says it's urgent that the FBI be permitted to help investigate the empty folders with classification markings to determine what they once held and whether their contents "may have been lost or compromised."
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 8, 2022
https://t.co/6NFnwPkbrP pic.twitter.com/Wh7d2CFJeq