By Ryan J. Reilly -
NBC News
The Justice Department is asking a federal appeals court to temporarily block a ruling by a judge appointed by former President Donald Trump that prevents him from using thousands of pages of government documents seized from the former president's Mar-a-Lago home. including hundreds of pages of classified documents.
The Justice Department has previously argued that any delay in its investigation into the handling and retention of Trump administration documents, including classified files, could result in
"irreparable harm" to the government and public opinion.
Aerial view of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 10, 2022.Steve Helber/AP
On Thursday night, District Judge Aileen Cannon denied his request to allow the FBI to continue using the hundreds of pages of classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago on August 8.
At the same time, Cannon appointed Senior District Judge Raymond J. Dearie as a special inspector for the case and, in an unprecedented move, gave him authority to rule on issues of executive privilege following a request from the Trump team.
Dearie issued an order this Friday in which he summoned both parties to a federal court in the district of Brooklyn, in New York, where he resides, for a conference next Tuesday, September 20.
Cannon previously prevented the government from using the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago for "
investigative purposes
."
The government had already asked him to lift its restrictions on a subset of documents - the hundreds of pages that bear a classification mark, because, according to the Justice Department, "they are government property over which the Executive Branch has control and in which the plaintiff has no recognizable ownership interest".
This is one of the objectives of the judicial subpoenas for figures very close to Donald Trump
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Generally, the Justice Department argued that a special monitor "is unnecessary and would significantly harm important government interests, including national security interests."
Dearie was one of two special inspector candidates proposed by Trump, and the
only suggestion from the former president that the Justice Department found acceptable.
The Trump team rejected the two candidates proposed by the Justice Department, but did not want to say publicly why it opposed these two former judges.
[The FBI found a document on another country's nuclear weapons at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home]
The Justice Department said last week, ahead of Cannon's order appointing the special inspector Thursday night, that it would appeal the judge's ruling broadly.
The Justice Department investigation stemmed from a long back-and-forth with the National Archives and Records Administration over boxes of documents that Trump retained after leaving office even though they were required to be released under the Presidential Records Act. delivered.
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The National Archives called the FBI after finding
hundreds of pages of government records
mixed with some of the records Trump returned in January.
Trump's team turned over some additional classified records and certified in a document signed in June that, after a "diligent search," it found no more classified records at Mar-a-Lago.
But there was more.