Last month, the FBI raided Trump’s Florida home home, seizing thousands of files, 103 of which were marked as classified.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has scored its first win in its case investigating Donald Trump’s potential mishandling of classified records after leaving office, after a panel of appeals court judges granted its request to be allowed to examine classified documents seized from the former president.
Last month, the FBI raided Trump’s beach club and home Mar-a-Lago in Florida, seizing thousands of files, 103 of which were marked as classified, including 54 labeled secret and 18 labeled top secret.
Trump has denied mishandling the sensitive materials and said that he may have declassified the files when he was president, saying that the FBI is on a « witchhunt ».
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday granted the DOJ’s request to stop an order handed down by a district judge that had prevented authorities from examining the classified documents and that ordered them to be handed to a third-party examiner. Of the panel of three justices, two of the judges were appointed by Trump and one by Democrat Barack Obama.
The ruling means that the government is no longer required to hand over documents marked classified to the « special master » that has been appointed in the case for review.
