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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...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals panel has lifted a judge's hold on the Justice Department's ability to use classified records seized from former President Donald Trump's Florida estate in its ongoing criminal investigation. The ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is a victory for the Justice Department, clearing the way for it to immediately resume its use of the documents as it evaluates whether to bring criminal charges in its investigation into the presence of top-secret government records held at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.

Judge Raymond Dearie, the “special master” appointed to review the ‘classified’ documents seized from Mar-a-Lago blasted Trump’s lawyers at Tuesday’s preliminary conference. Judge Dearie was one of the FISA judges who signed the warrant to spy on Carter Page without cause. ...... Snip...... On Tuesday Judge Dearie repeatedly asked Trump’s lawyers to prove the former president declassified the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago, “You can’t have your cake and eat it,” the judge said according to Politico. In a new filing Trump’s lawyers argued that the DOJ has never actually proven the documents it claims are classified are actually classified. “The...

Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master overseeing the seizure of documents from Mar-a-Lago, signaled on Tuesday to lawyers for former President Donald Trump that if they don't make a case that any of the documents were declassified, he would determine that they're classified. Out of court, Trump has pushed the claim he declassified all the documents, and his lawyers have raised that possibility in court papers, though they have never explicitly argued that anything was declassified. Federal prosecutors have argued for weeks that documents seized from Mar-a-Lago that contain classification markings -- like "top secret" -- should be treated as...

A bogus motion claiming to be from the U.S. Treasury appeared in the court docket for the Justice Department’s investigation of records seized from Mar-a-Lago. The motion was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. The bogus document claimed the Treasury had sensitive documents related to the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Florida home and told CNN to keep “leaked tax records.” The bogus document claimed the Treasury had sensitive documents related to the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Florida home and told CNN to keep “leaked tax records.”“The U.S. Department of Treasury through the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals...

The newly appointed special master who will review the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago directed lawyers for former President Trump and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to meet with him in New York on Tuesday for their first conference. Judge Raymond Dearie, who was appointed as special master in the case on Thursday, called on Friday for a meeting and invited the two parties to suggest items for discussion, according to a court filing. Dearie has until Nov. 30 to complete his review of the documents. As the special master process moves forward, the Justice Department is continuing its legal battle...

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice is asking a federal appeals court to temporarily block a Trump-appointed judge’s ruling that prevents it from accessing hundreds of pages of classified records seized amid the thousands of pages of government documents taken from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home. “The district court has entered an unprecedented order enjoining the Executive Branch’s use of its own highly classified records in a criminal investigation with direct implications for national security,” the Justice Department wrote in its motion Friday.

Trump’s win shouldn’t be a loss for the Department of Justice—unless the Biden administration played fast and loose with the facts.The Biden administration cannot use the documents the FBI seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for criminal investigative purposes until a special master completes an independent review of the material, a federal judge held on Thursday.That decision and the court’s selection of Trump’s preferred special master candidate, coupled with the fulsome review process adopted yesterday by presiding Judge Aileen Cannon, represent a huge victory for the former president. But Trump’s win shouldn’t be a loss for the Department of Justice—unless...

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday appointed New York Judge Raymond Dearie as special master to independently review documents the FBI took from former President Donald Trump's Florida home in early August. Cannon's appointment of Dearie came alongside a separate ruling that denied the Department of Justice's request to continue its own review of the documents. "The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion," Cannon wrote in her ruling denying the DOJ further review of...

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday denied the Department of Justice's request for a partial stay of her ruling that enjoined the FBI from using roughly 100 documents seized from Mar-a-Lago with classification markings in its ongoing criminal investigation of Donald Trump -- and mandated they be handed over to a special master for review.Cannon has also appointed Raymond Dearie, senior district judge for the Eastern District of New York, as special master.In a filing last week that amounted to a line-by-line rebuke of Cannon's ruling, DOJ prosecutors wrote that they would seek intervention by the 11th Circuit Court...

The Justice Department and former President Donald Trump's legal team have found rare agreement in a potential candidate to serve as the special master tasked with reviewing the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. Judge Raymond Dearie, whom Trump's legal team put forward, is an acceptable option to serve as the third-party attorney to independently review the seized materials, the Justice Department said in a court filing Monday evening. While it remains unclear when US District Judge Aileen Cannon will decide who will serve as the special master, here's what you need to know about Dearie and the role he could play...

n FBI agent whose identity was withheld in the document’s release on Friday claimed that earlier this year, they “observed markings reflecting the following compliments/dissemination controls: HCS (Human Intelligence Control Systems), FISA, ORCON (originator controlled), NOFORN (not for release to foreign nationals), and SI (special intelligence)”. Meanwhile, according to The Epoch Times, former White House adviser Kash Patel told the Wall Street Journal in mid-August that he thinks some of the FBI’s papers were relevant to the Russia probe. That means other people might be implicated by the information. Patel described the raid as politically motivated. “It had to do...

Former President Donald Trump returned to the government an envelope full of documents “wrapped in tape” and failed to mention that he supposedly declassified the records kept at his Florida residence, the FBI said in court papers revealed on Tuesday. The unredacted details were included in the FBI search warrant affidavit used to justify the unprecedented Aug. 8 raid on an ex-president’s home. After the raid, Trump claimed he declassified any records retrieved by the authorities from his Mar-a-Lago resort. The newly disclosed search warrant affidavit details come as the Justice Department pushes back on Trump’s claim to have a...

Lawyers for the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday filed a new motion that again seeks a stay in a judge’s order appointing a special master to review documents that were seized during last month’s FBI raid targeting former President Donald Trump’s residence. In the latest filing, DOJ prosecutors said that they want a “limited” yet “critical” stay of the order so as to continue their review of certain documents. They argue that the materials could potentially “jeopardize national security.” “These records are at the core of the government’s investigation, and the government’s inability to review and use them significantly...

A federal judge on Tuesday unsealed additional portions of an FBI affidavit laying out the basis for a search of former US President Donald Trump’s Florida home, The Associated Press reported. The latest portion that was unsealed shows that agents earlier obtained a hard drive after issuing a subpoena for surveillance footage recorded inside Mar-a-Lago. A heavily redacted version of the affidavit was made public last month, but the Justice Department requested permission to show more of it after lawyers for Trump revealed the existence of a June grand jury subpoena that sought video footage from cameras in the vicinity...

Merrick Garland is supposed to be a pretty good lawyer. Harvard Law School, federal prosecutor, federal judge, Supreme Court nominee, attorney general presiding over the Department of Justice (DOJ) — all the cake, most of the icing, without the cherry. But some of my former prosecutor friends tell me that he may have overlooked a key procedural point in his current joust with former President Trump over the Mar-a-Lago documents. On Sept. 8, Garland filed a notice of appeal to the 11th circuit Court of Appeals from the special master order of Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon. Simultaneously, he moved...

In a filing late Monday, the Justice Department agreed to one of the choices for a special master put forward by former president Donald Trump to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.Judge Raymond J. Dearie, who was one of two choices submitted by Trump’s legal team, would review all of the documents if Judge Aileen Cannon approves the pick. Cannon had previously requested that both Trump and the Justice Department offer up candidates to serve as special master.According to the Washington Post, Dearie has a long record of serving in the criminal justice system.Dearie, 78, still serves as a judge in...

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers might be going for the legal jugular in the ongoing fight between the Biden Justice Department and the former president over classified information seized from his Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8. It’s been over a month, and while some information appears to be classified—the government over-classifies everything—the critical legal area that’s glossed over is that Trump probably was well within his legal rights to possess them. Some documents taken by FBI agents were Time magazine covers, while others were empty folders. The president has near-absolute authority to declassify any record, a power affirmed by the...

Whistleblowers stepped forward recently and revealed that top FBI brass smuggled cellphones into secure rooms, called SCIFs, in violation of bureau rules. This is the same organization that raided the homes of thousands of Trump supporters in the past two years and continues to harass and subpoena top Trump associates to this day. The FBI recently raided President Trump’s home allegeding, falsely, that he was holding classified documents while at the same time violating their own protocol at the headquaters building and in satallite offices around the country. Monica Crowley joined Jesse Watters Monday on FOX News to discuss the...