Donald Trump Suffers Another Legal Defeat as Appeals Court Halts Special Master Review of Mar-a-Lago Documents

Former President Donald Trump suffered another legal blow as a U.S. appeals court ended on Thursday the special master's review of documents seized by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

According to Reuters, the unanimous federal appeals court reversed a judge's appointment of an independent arbiter, also known as a "special master," to review the Mar-a-Lago documents. The appeals court also allowed all records to be used in the FBI's criminal investigation of Trump.

The Justice Department is criminally probing the former president for the removal of government records from the White House and possible obstruction of justice. The FBI confiscated these documents from Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in August. More than a hundred documents were determined to be classified.

The Atlanta-based 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has reversed Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's September ruling to name a special master to review these documents and decide which records should be kept from investigators.

The three-judge panel noted that Cannon did not have the authority to grant the former president's request for a special master. The panel also lifted Cannon's decision to bar investigators from accessing most of the records pending the special master's review and threw out Trump's lawsuit he filed two weeks after the FBI carried out a court-approved search on August 8.

Appeals Court Judges Explain Why They Overturned Donald Trump's Special Master Request

According to the Associated Press, the Court of Appeals panel comprises three Republican-appointed judges, two of whom were selected by Donald Trump himself. However, the three judges unanimously ruled against the former president in favor of the Department of Justice.

In their decision, the judges acknowledged that it was indeed extraordinary that a search warrant was issued in the home of a former president. However, they stated that Aileen Cannon's decision affected legal analysis and allowed the judiciary to interfere in an ongoing investigation.

The judges wrote a 21-page opinion that stated that the law is clear and that they "cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant."

They also ruled that former presidents are not immune from this rule. Trump's attorneys argued that some of the records seized by the FBI during the Mar-a-Lago search were covered by either "executive privilege" or attorney-client privilege.

However, Financial Times reported that the judges struck this down. They contradicted the Trump legal team and called their assertions a "sideshow."

Donald Trump Documents Case in a Nutshell

The FBI found over 13,000 documents when they searched Donald Trump's home. Some of these documents were marked confidential, secret, or top secret. However, Trump argued that he had already declassified them because he had the power to declassify documents just by thinking about it.

Trump was unhappy with the seizure of these documents and immediately tried to block the FBI from reviewing them by requesting a special master.

Aileen Cannon granted the request but received flak from fellow judges and legal experts for doing so. Trump then asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case, but it was struck down.

This legal defeat was the latest in a string of legal losses for Trump, with the most recent ones happening when the Supreme Court ruled that the House Ways and Means Committee can view his tax returns. Trump was also subpoenaed for his testimony about his role during the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH: Appeals Court Blocks Special Master's Review Of Documents Taken From Trump's Mar-A-Lago - From CBS Miami