Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday told a federal appeals court (second instance) that the court should not lift an injunction filed by a lower court judge against the Department of Justice. With that, the former president’s lawyers want to prevent the department (equivalent to the Ministry of Justice) from using the Mar-a-Lago documents identified as classified in its criminal investigation and remain in doubt whether the approximately 100 documents that are the key to the litigation are, in fact, confidential.
Trump, however, again refused to present evidence that he had declassified (i.e., taken away the secrecy) of the documents before leaving office.
The former president told the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals that they should not believe the Justice Department’s argument that documents should be considered classified prior to a full review. In addition, Trump said the Department of Justice, in filing the suit in the court of appeal, “assumes — without either party providing any evidence — that the documents are, in fact, classified.”
Trump’s latest petition emphasized a president’s authority to declassify documents and argued that the secrecy status of documents at this point should be regarded as ambiguous.
“The government assumes again that documents it claims to be classified are, in fact, classified and that their segregation is inviolable. However, the administration has yet to prove this critical fact,” Trump’s petition stated.
The new action was filed after Trump’s lawyers told the special master that they did not want to disclose to him, at that time (that is, Monday night, the 19th), specific information about whether or not to declassify the documents. The special master is a retired judge appointed by a judge specifically to review documents.
Trump said in media interviews that he declassified the documents he took from the White House and took to his home in Florida – however, the former president’s lawyers avoided confirming that claim in court.
The Justice Department is appealing a federal judge’s order to pause the investigation for the special master’s review. In addition, prosecutors asked the second instance court to withdraw documents seized in Mar-a-Lago marked as classified.
In the lawsuit filed today in the 11th Circuit, Trump argued that “the District Court’s orders [de primeira instância] are a sensible preliminary step towards restoring order to chaos, and this Court should therefore deny the government’s petition.”
The case is being referred to the 11th Circuit after Trump sued (and won) to get a special master — that is, an outside attorney — to review materials seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago last month. The focus is now on who can process the 100 or so seized documents marked as classified.
Prosecutors argued that the pause in the criminal investigation poses national security risks. They say the criminal investigation cannot be dissociated from an intelligence assessment of documents that was authorized by District Judge Aileen Cannon.
In lawsuits filed in court last week, the Justice Department rejected the idea that Trump could claim any of those 100 documents were personal records. It’s an argument Trump has used to keep the papers from falling into the hands of investigators. In addition, the Justice Department questioned how Judge Cannon entered the case, arguing that she did not have the authority to interfere with prosecutors’ review of documents.
Litigation on the 11th Circuit is being conducted using a special court-appointed master, Brooklyn Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, who has already begun preparing the case for its review. Later on Tuesday, he was expected to hold a meeting with the parties to discuss the next steps in the process.
In a letter addressed to Special Master Dearie on Monday evening, Trump’s team signaled resistance to explaining, at the start of the review, which documents Trump allegedly declassified.
Source: CNN Brasil
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