DOJ asks to drop special master in Trump docs case
STORY: The U.S. Justice Department on Friday asked an appeals court to shut down special master Raymond Dearie's review of documents seized from Donald Trump's Florida home.
In a filing to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, prosecutors said Judge Aileen Cannon exceeded her authority when she named Dearie as the special master to vet the more than 11,000 seized documents.
The DOJ said the move, which essentially blocked the department's access to the records, "caused and continues to cause significant harm to the government and the public."
The federal appeals court had last month restored some of the department's access to some of the records, now the department is appealing the rest of Judge Cannon's order.
The former U.S. president is being probed for his handling of sensitive government records after leaving office in January 2021.
Roughly 11,000 records were seized at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach in August.
About two weeks after the search, Trump sued the Justice Department and asked for the special master review in a bid to keep some of the records away from investigators while the vetting took place.
