Donald Trump is opposing the Justice Department’s efforts to speed up its circuit court appeal of the appointment of a special master, with the former president’s lawyers saying oral arguments shouldn’t happen until January at the earliest.
The Justice Department last week requested an expedited ruling in its appeal of the appointment of the special master who is examining the classified documents obtained during the FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Trump’s lawyers are now fighting that.
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“President Trump also opposes the Government’s request to expedite oral argument in this case. … President Trump believes setting oral argument in January 2023 or later is appropriate,” Trump attorneys Christopher Kise and Jim Trusty said in a Monday morning filing, adding, “President Trump disagrees with and objects to the Government’s distorted and argumentative presentation of facts concerning the unprecedented raid of his home, its conduct in these proceedings, and the procedural history of this case.”
Last month, Judge Aileen Cannon appointed Judge Raymond Dearie to be an independent reviewer of the records seized from Mar-a-Lago during the unprecedented raid.
The Justice Department argued Friday that its alleged inability to access nonclassified documents seized in the raid in early August is hampering its investigation into whether Trump improperly moved classified information out of the White House during his presidency, according to its filing with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
The prosecutors claimed the acceleration would allow the department to “more quickly resume its full investigation without restraints on its review and use of evidence seized pursuant to a lawful search warrant.”
The DOJ proposal included a request to expedite the deadline for written briefs to Nov. 11, but Trump’s team countered that all of the written briefs and replies shouldn’t be due until Nov. 21 and that the oral arguments shouldn’t happen until next year.
Trump’s legal team has unsuccessfully sought to keep the appeals court out of the process, arguing that the circuit judges “should, respectfully, decline the Government’s invitation to proceed directly toward a preordained conclusion.”
The appeals court has already granted the Justice Department’s request for a partial stay of Cannon’s lower court order, allowing the DOJ to continue its criminal investigation using allegedly classified documents the FBI seized. The three-judge panel’s decision was a win for the DOJ, with the appeals court also reversing Cannon’s determination that the DOJ would have to provide roughly 100 documents with classified markings to the special master for review.
Cannon had ruled last month that she “temporarily enjoins the Government from reviewing and using the seized materials for investigative purposes pending completion of the special master’s review or further Court order.” But she emphasized her ruling “shall not impede” the classification review and intelligence assessment being conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
But the DOJ quickly appealed by claiming that pausing the FBI’s criminal investigation while separately continuing the ODNI’s damage assessment was essentially an impossible distinction to make.
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The appeals court sided with DOJ that Cannon had “likely erred” in her ruling pausing the DOJ’s criminal investigation and requiring prosecutors to allow Dearie to scrutinize the 100 documents with classified markings independently.
Last week, Cannon also overruled the special master she appointed when Dearie sought a sworn document from Trump’s legal team on whether the DOJ planted evidence and whether the Justice Department’s inventory of items seized from Mar-a-Lago was accurate. She took note of concerns from Trump’s lawyers that their “current inability to access the Seized Materials” would hinder them from corroborating the DOJ inventory.
