Legal experts predict Trump’s DOJ case will be thrown out: ‘End of story’

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking an appeals court to stop an independent review of documents seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, a move that legal analysts say will mean another defeat in courtroom for the ex-president.

Federal prosecutors filed a brief with an appeals court on Friday challenging the earlier appointment of a special master to sort through protected documents taken from Trump’s home during an FBI search in August. Legal watchers previously rejected U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s appointment of a special master, and now expect the DOJ to prevail after winning a narrower appeal earlier.

At the request of Trump’s attorneys, Cannon appointed Raymond Dearie, a Brooklyn-based senior federal judge, as a special master to set aside seized documents protected by attorney-client or executive privilege. The DOJ scored a victory in September when the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta ruled that about 100 documents marked as classified were not subject to special master review.

The DOJ is now asking the same panel to release the roughly 11,000 documents still under review by the special master, which Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor turned defense attorney, said. Newsweek is “the next logical extension of where things are in the case.”

“The appeals court ruling largely rendered the special master unnecessary because the special master was only left to documents that were unclassified,” he said. “Nobody really cares about documents that are unclassified.”

Teri Kanefield, author and former appeals court advocate, predicted in a tweet that the DOJ would likely prevail because Cannon lacked legal authority over the case.

She wrote in a tweet that Cannon had previously acknowledged that Trump’s rights had not been ignored and that the DOJ would succeed in arguing in the appeals court that the ex-president did not need to retain the rights. government documents.

“There you go. End of story,” Kanefield tweeted. “If there is no jurisdiction, the case is thrown out. Everything goes wrong.”

Ryan Goodman, a law professor and former Pentagon special advocate, tweeted that Cannon’s lack of jurisdiction over the case means “the DOJ will win hands down.”

“It was an essential requirement for Cannon to have jurisdiction,” he wrote. “Cannon admitted that Trump made no demonstration to meet the condition. End of story.”

Joyce Alene say it Twitter that Trump’s lawyers will have until November 10 to respond, and the DOJ will have until November 17 to respond. That puts an appeal decision within weeks of the Dec. 16 deadline. Dearie must finish her exam as a special master.

levin said Newsweek that the DOJ has already won a significant victory in regaining access to classified documents and that the current call is to establish “a clear case on when a special master’s degree is appropriate and when a special master’s degree is not appropriate” .

“So on some level it’s symbolic,” he said.

Newsweek contacted Trump’s legal team for comment.