Last week, the DOJ asked Cannon to reverse her decision to bar the FBI and DOJ prosecutors from using material taken from Trump’s home until the special master — a third party appointed to oversee evidence — had vetted it. It argued that the prohibition posed an unacceptable threat to national security. Most immediately, the Trump team faces a 10 a.m. Monday deadline to respond to the Justice Department’s request that Cannon suspend parts of her special master order while the appeal proceeds.
More legal filings could push the probe closer to the 2024 presidential campaign — a sensitive political matter since Trump is giving every sign he intends to be a candidate and has claimed the drama is a politically motivated attempt to keep him from winning a second White House term.
Trump is within his rights to fight for a special master, even if many legal experts argue that it’s clear the information he had belongs to the government and not him. But the former President also has a long record in his political and business career of exhausting the system of appeals to the fullest extent of the legal system, often in order to delay a moment when he might face accountability. His latest gambits and some of Cannon’s own writings in the case have sparked criticism that he’s getting special treatment.
“I do think that, just like any American, if there is evidence, that evidence should be pursued,” Clinton, whom Trump defeated in 2016, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” on Sunday.
In Cannon’s order last Monday, she had said that while prosecutors could not use material taken from Trump’s resort until they had been reviewed by the special master for legal and executive privilege issues, a review by intelligence agencies into possible damage to national security could continue. The DOJ, however, argued that was impractical.
In its filing late Thursday, which added up to a comprehensive critique of Cannon’s reasoning, the department argued that it and the FBI’s work on the criminal investigation could not be separated from the parallel probe by the intelligence community. In essence, they argued that the FBI and the DOJ are an integral part of the intelligence community. And they warned that the loss of the ability to examine whether critical intelligence had been jeopardized by Trump could cause grave damage.
“The government and the public are irreparably injured when a criminal investigation of matters involving risks to national security is enjoined,” the department argued when giving its notice of an appeal. And it also served notice that the DOJ will seek the intervention of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals if Cannon does not grant its request to suspend parts of her ruling by September 15.
Senate intelligence committee expects briefing
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that key congressional leaders had still not been briefed on potential intelligence vulnerabilities at Mar-a-Lago because of the tussle over the special master going on in Cannon’s court.
“We have not been briefed. We expect to be briefed,” the Virginia Democrat told Bash. “I think we’ll get some clarity on that in a couple days, and we expect to get that briefing,” he added.
But the latest legal wrangling between Trump’s team and the DOJ is to some extent obscuring the core question…
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