The Department of Justice now has the upper hand against Donald Trump in the ongoing dispute over the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI and National Archives.
After the FBI executed a search warrant in August, Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon appointed Special Master Raymond to oversee the documents in a highly criticized order. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a limited ruling against Cannon that was unanimously upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Friday, the DOJ filed an appeal with the 11th Circuit to completely end the special master.
For analysis, CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
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"The Justice Department said all of the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago could be evidence of crimes," Blitzer said.
"They absolutely could be, Wolf," McCabe replied.
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"And I think what you see the department doing here is trying to capitalize on some legal momentum that they've been able to pull together over the last two phases of this appeals process," he explained. "You'll remember the 11th Circuit ruled strongly in their favor over the issue of the classified documents. President Trump fought that, tried to raise that issue with the Supreme Court and was soundly rejected, just a day or so ago."
"So I think the Justice Department is kind of reading the weather here and realizing that they have the upper hand in challenging Judge Cannon's order, putting the special master in place, and they're taking their shot to see if they can get that entire thing knocked out."
Andrew McCabewww.youtube.com
