Posted on 09/21/2022 8:45:48 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta just dealt former President Donald Trump and his legal team a serious setback as they authorized the DOJ to continue combing through classified records seized after FBI agents raided his Palm Beach, Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, in early August. The ruling reverses an earlier decision by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who ruled in favor of Trump last week by allowing an independent arbiter known as a special master to review the documents before the DOJ could look at them.
This new decision dramatically scales back the power of the special master and allows the Department of Justice unfettered access to the classified documents.
During the unprecedented raid, the FBI removed a reported 11,000 documents along with The Donald’s passports and 1,800 “other items.” Basically, they took anything that wasn’t nailed down.
Huge revelation from the 11th Circuit’s opinion tonight: FBI seized over 1800 “other items” that were not documents.
Yet the DOJ maintains that Trump has no “possessory interest” or 4th Amendment claim here?
🤡🤡🤡 pic.twitter.com/6yqvTGae3E
— Jenna Ellis 🍊🦅 (@JennaEllisEsq) September 21, 2022
Trump’s team has maintained that a special master should go through the documents first to ascertain whether there were any instances of privilege or attorney-client correspondence. The former president has also claimed that he declassified all the material, but the court said there was no evidence of that:
Plaintiff suggests that he may have declassified these documents when he was President. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified.
They then went on to say that even if the items were declassified, it didn’t really matter:
In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal.
The three justices also said that Trump had no “individual interest in or need for” the approximately 100 documents marked as classified. The Associated Press, like the New York Times and seemingly every liberal account on Twitter, claims this is a huge victory for the Justice Department:
The ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit amounts to an overwhelming victory for the Justice Department, clearing the way for investigators to continue scrutinizing the documents as they evaluate whether to bring criminal charges over the storage of of top-secret records at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.
[Emphasis mine.]
Liberals were in full gloating mode, with lots of them posting tweets like this:
Great day for Career Criminal Donald Trump. The NY AG sues him for a lifetime of Corrupt business practices and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rules the DOJ can continue their investigation into the stolen Top Secret Classified Documents. Have a good evening.
— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) September 21, 2022
Haven’t we seen this movie countless times, Rob Reiner? You rejoice, only to be left whimpering when the charges don’t pan out? We’ll see whether that’s the case once again here. The court explained its ruling:
It is self-evident that the public has a strong interest in ensuring that the storage of the classified records did not result in ‘exceptionally grave damage to the national security.’ Ascertaining that necessarily involves reviewing the documents, determining who had access to them and when, and deciding which (if any) sources or methods are compromised.
But what happens to the special master, Judge Raymond J. Dearie? He is now barred from accessing the classified materials and will spend his time going through the approximately 11,000 unclassified documents. Sounds like a fun job.
It’s been a rough day legally for Donald, as Trump-hater New York Attorney General Letitia James filed suit against the entire Trump family organization Wednesday morning. One could argue that Trump is in serious legal jeopardy, and is clearly a criminal. In my view, however, it’s a perversion of justice that the DOJ, the New York state attorney general, the Manhattan district attorney, the Democrat Senate when he was in office, the DOJ’s Southern District of New York, and virtually every other prosecutorial department in America has tried to get this guy and yet… they’ve still come up with nothing.
Let’s see if this time the “walls” are really “closing in.”
I think Trump needs better lawyers.
I assume they asked for an immediate stay while they appeal? Or did they drop that ball, too, like when they waited 10(?) days to ask for a Special Master?
I always love a tweet from Meathead! My goodness what an ass he is.
The documents weren’t classified. Trump de-classified them while still POTUS.
From twitter:
(Article III Project)
🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸
@mrddmia
Trump’s legal team should do what they said they would do:
File an amended Rule 41(g) motion under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Make these legal arguments.
Get back his 11,000 records.
(Just like Clinton kept his personal copy of his highly classified recordings.)
8:29 PM · Sep 21, 2022
·Twitter Web App
From twitter:
(Article III Project)
🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸
@mrddmia
Trump’s legal team should do what they said they would do:
File an amended Rule 41(g) motion under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Make these legal arguments.
Get back his 11,000 records.
(Just like Clinton kept his personal copy of his highly classified recordings.)
8:29 PM · Sep 21, 2022
·Twitter Web App
The Judges think that a declassified document is still a problem?
How so?
It’s declassified. Ipso facto, in the public domain.
Only one individual has that plenary power, and it isn’t a panel of rat judges.
The guy they served a general warrant on.
He says this now, but what proof is there?
Wouldn’t you request en banc review by full court first?
Just the act of moving them declassified them. Oh, yes, it’s true.
- Mark Levin
Trump also reiterated this point tonight on Fox.
You mean, the better lawyers whose lives won't be destroyed by the Left, the Democrats and their Media if they dare to work for Trump?
These people would have threatened and destroyed John Adams had he had the temerity to work for Orange Man Bad.
Doesn’t need proof. He can wave his hand over the document and, poof, they’re declassified. No written document with his signature is required. He can say it to himself with no one present. They’re de-classified. He’s the only person in the nation that has that power.
There is no set protocol.
Hillary Clinton couldn’t do it. Trump could.
I don’t think so, but I am not a legal expert. Mike Davis is on Bannon and Fox a lot and is great. Here is more from twitter:
🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸
@mrddmia
·
3h
11th Circuit didn’t address these key legal points.
Again, under Presidential Records Act:
1. Records “received” by the President are presidential records
2. He determines what are “personal”
2. Former Presidents get unfettered access to their records
Including classified.
my understanding was that the RATS have ALREADY gone thru them, and this is to determine if they are legally his and not actionable...
The 11th’s decision is a partial stay of the lower court’s order.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000183-625b-da48-a3e3-e2ff83050000
>>We stress the limited nature of our review: this matter comes to us on a motion for a partial stay pending appeal. We cannot (and do not) decide the merits of this case. We decide only the traditional equitable considerations, including whether the United States has shown a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits, the harm each party might suffer from a stay, and where the public interest lies.
For the reasons we explain below, we grant the United States’s motion for a partial stay pending appeal.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has declared the 4th Amendment to be unconstitutional.
>> For our part, we cannot discern why Plaintiff would have an
individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings. Classified documents are
marked to show they are classified, for instance, with their classification level. Classified National Security Information, Exec. Order
No. 13,526, § 1.6, 3 C.F.R. 298, 301 (2009 Comp.), reprinted in 50
U.S.C. § 3161 app. at 290–301. They are “owned by, produced by
or for, or . . . under the control of the United States Government.”
Id. § 1.1. And they include information the “unauthorized disclosure [of which] could reasonably be expected to cause identifiable
or describable damage to the national security.” Id. § 1.4. For this
reason, a person may have access to classified information only if,
among other requirements, he “has a need-to-know the information.” Id. § 4.1(a)(3). This requirement pertains equally to former Presidents, unless the current administration, in its discretion,
chooses to waive that requirement. Id. § 4.4(3).
Plaintiff has not even attempted to show that he has a need
to know the information contained in the classified documents.
Nor has he established that the current administration has waived
that requirement for these documents. And even if he had, that, in
and of itself, would not explain why Plaintiff has an individual interest in the classified documents.
The 11th circuit was very conservative during the attempted election steal of 2000. The deep state set out to change that and they succeeded in infiltrating and corrupting it. The 9th circuit may actually be more conservative at this point.
Meathead should be used for calling a private citizen a Career criminal. That would be one defamation trial I would love to see on Court TV.
Between the Appeals Court finding, the Dearie fiasco, the Lititia James ridiculous Civil case, it’s a wonder President Trump maintains his sanity.
WTH,did the Appeals court mean in giving them the right to go ahead with the documents.
I am beginning to question all judges, except Judge Cannon, who appears to be the ONLY JUDGE WITH A SENSE OF JUSTICE AND THE INTELLIGENCE TO EXPRESS IT.
SAD DAY.
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