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DOJ appeals portion of special master decision in Trump case
The Department of Justice on Friday asked an appeals court to restore FBI access to roughly 100 documents taken from former President Donald Trump's Florida mansion, but did not seek to block the appointment of a so-called "special master," or third-party individual, to review other materials, The New York Times reports.
In its filing, the Justice Department requested that the appeals court refrain from submitting the 100-some classified documents to the outside arbiter, but still agreed to hand over thousands of others materials. The department's ask arrives after Judge Aileen Cannon granted Trump's request for a special master, and forbade law enforcement agencies from accessing the thousands of seized documents under investigative circumstances until the special master's review has finished. The department initially asked Cannon to stay the section of her order blocking it from investigating the specific 100 or so files in question, but she denied the request on Thursday.
Officials then decided to try their hand with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, per the Times.
"Although the government believes the district court fundamentally erred in appointing a special master and granting injunctive relief," lawyers for the department wrote in their appeal, "the government seeks to stay only the portions of the order causing the most serious and immediate harm to the government and the public."