Setback for Trump: Fails to Block FBI Investigation into Mar-a-Lago Documents

A federal appeals court in Atlanta has rejected this Thursday the request of the former US president Donald Trump to conduct an external review of the FBI’s seizure of classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago mansion in August.

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Thus, the magistrates unanimously ruled that a lower court could not limit the Justice Department’s investigation by accepting Trump’s request to block investigators’ access to the records, as well as in the decision to appoint an expert. Special for evaluation.

“The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant,” the court said, as reported by CBS.

“Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so. Either approach would be a radical reordering of our jurisprudence that limits the participation of federal courts in criminal investigations,” he added.

This finding, in line with the Supreme Court ruling in mid-October, allows the Justice Department to resume use of the seized materials as part of the investigation into whether Trump breached the rules on classified documents and obstructed justice, since that use of the materials had been suspended while the review was in progress.

During brief arguments before the Atlanta Court of Appeals last week, the three judges, appointed by the Republican Party, suggested that Trump and his legal team wanted special treatment that no other American would have been accorded by allowing him the opportunity to contest the search warrant executed at his home long before charges were filed, reports DPA.

In this sense, the former US president’s lawyers have not been able to prove that the government abused its authority when registering his property, while the court has rejected Trump’s assertions indicating that the documents could be protected because they are personal under the Presidential Records Law.

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“As we have said, the status of a document as personal or presidential does not alter the authority of the Government to seize it under an order supported by probable cause,” the judges have indicated, noting that judicial intervention is normally sought when the seized items “belong unequivocally the object of a search”, collects The Hill.

The FBI seized 11 batches of classified documents during an August search of Trump’s Florida mansion under an order empowering agents to seize allegedly classified documents. The former president alleged that he himself declassified the suspicious documents.

Since the search was carried out in his lavish Florida residence in early August, Trump has been insinuating that the Department of Justice would have planted evidence that incriminated him and that is why he has insisted on the need for the independent third party, the Judge Raymond J. Dearie, will review the information seized.