If Donald Trump thought his legal troubles were bad now, last night the 11th Circuit just ruled against his "special master" nonsense, all but tossing Judge Aileen Cannon's ruling out the window on appeal.
A federal appeals court is allowing the Justice Department to continue looking at documents marked as classified that were seized from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and resort.
The emergency intervention upends a trial judge's order over those documents that blocked federal investigators' work on the documents.
A special master's review of that subset of about 100 records, which would've allowed Trump's legal team to see them, is now partially stopped. The special master, Judge Raymond Dearie, is able to continue his work reviewing the rest of the material seized from Mar-a-Lago, to make sure records belonging to Trump or that he may be able to claim are confidential aren't used by investigators.
"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,'" the three-judge panel from the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals stated. "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."
Team Trump of course will demand a full panel hearing (called en banc) from the entire 11th Circuit now, but it turns out he can't get one.
Eleventh Circuit Rule 35-4 expressly prohibits en banc reconsideration of panel rulings on applications for stays.
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) September 22, 2022
In English, if Trump wants to continue to defend Judge Cannon's injunction, his only remaining option is #SCOTUS (where, IMHO, he'll lose):https://t.co/PbyNFqkNgq pic.twitter.com/9rQ4ApbuR9
We'll see. This was always going to go to SCOTUS anyway.
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