Investigation into Trump documents gets caught up in courts | International

The case over the Donald Trump documents has reached a temporary impasse. The former president’s lawyers have stalled the investigation thanks to a Trump-appointed federal judge’s decision to hire an independent expert to review the case. Documents seized at Mar-a-Lago registry The Department of Justice and the FBI can continue to work with them on the investigation. The prosecution has appealed with the aim of continuing the investigation At least a hundred classified documents were found. Otherwise, it would cause “irreparable damage” to the investigation, he alleged.

The judiciary tends to keep a low profile as elections approach. He cannot work sensibly at the moment with two months to go before the assembly elections on November 8. In his order, the judge said, “The government has temporarily restrained the examination of the seized material and its use in the investigation. Until the special primary investigation is completed or a new court order is issued.” The government may continue to review and use the documents for purposes of intelligence classification and national security assessments, but not for such an investigation.

In her ruling, Justice Eileen Cannon acknowledges that a decision like hers is not typical, and implicitly acknowledges the special treatment of Trump: “Given the nature of this action, principles of equity require the court to consider the particular context, and that consideration is inherently influenced by the plaintiff’s prior position, ” he says, referring to the previous presidency.

Without specifically mentioning the case, the head of the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland, warned at an event in New York this Saturday that the rule of law, or the rule of law, is “weak” and needs to be addressed. : “The rule of law means that the law treats us all equally: there is not one rule for friends and another for enemies; One fate for the powerful, another for the powerless; One fate for the rich, another fate for the poor,” he said.

Judge Eileen Cannon, 78-year-old New York Judge Raymond J. Derry’s appointment as a special expert was proposed by Trump’s lawyers and accepted by the attorney general’s office. Your job is not to take the brief, but to check whether some of those documents are protected by attorney-client privilege or administrative privilege. Protects professional secrecy to the extent that it affects the right to defense, affecting the relationship between the party under investigation and his lawyer. The second refers to the ability of the executive to reject documents for other branches of government, such as the legislature or the judiciary. Who does now?

Trump will cover the specialist’s costs and the executive support he needs, but his work to review more than 11,000 documents will take a long time. The judge has given him time till November 30. That is why, The Department of Justice appealed to the judge At least he should be allowed to continue his investigation One hundred seized documents were marked confidential. This he refuses, although he makes a small concession: he orders the expert to reconsider them first, and then opens the door to a reconsideration of his decision. The prosecution did not consider it sufficient and appealed to the High Court.

“A district judge has issued an unprecedented order barring an executive branch from using its own top-secret records in a criminal investigation with direct national security implications,” it said in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It should “suspend only those parts of the order that would cause the most serious and immediate harm to the government and the public, by restricting the government’s review and use of records bearing classification marks.”

The Justice Department has argued that the privileges Trump is seeking cannot be applied to classified documents. “The plaintiff cannot demand the return of those records that are owned by the government and seized in a court-authorized search,” he explains, adding that they are “the focus of an ongoing investigation.”

Trump and his lawyers are playing cat and mouse with the idea that those documents may have been classified. The former president has confirmed this on his social media, but the lawyers have avoided getting wet in court. The judge has allowed them to be reviewed like everyone else and decisions will be made.

In its appeal, the Justice Department alleged that refusing to continue working with those documents would cause irreparable harm. And on the possibility of their classification, it says: “Despite several opportunities, the plaintiff has never stated that he actually took any of those steps, such a statement he supported with competent evidence. It was wrong for the court to grant an extraordinary proceeding based on unproven probabilities.

The appeals court is based in Atlanta and six of its 11 judges have been appointed by Trump. Regardless of the final outcome of the appeal, Judge Cannon’s actions have already had an effect: The case was bogged down in the courts and caused delays in the trial.

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