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A US federal judge in Florida who appointed the special master for former President Donald Trump just tossed his lawsuit against the FBI’s raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Judge Aileen Cannon wrote in a Monday one-page order that she was dismissing the case because of a « lack of jurisdiction. »
The ruling comes after a three-judge federal appeals court on December 1 wrote a scathing opinion overturning Cannon’s initial decision to side with Trump and grant him a special master to review documents taken in the FBI’s search. Less than week later, a federal appeals court in Atlanta formally ended the review.
Trump’s team had the option to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, but didn’t do so.
Cannon’s ruling on Monday officially dismisses the case on the special master, an outside arbiter who had been tasked with reviewing documents that were recovered at Mar-a-Lago with the goal of determining whether any were protected by attorney-client or executive privilege.
The higher court’s ruling was a victory for the Justice Department, which had appealed Cannon’s decision and argued that the special master would slow down the investigation amid national security concerns and cause « irreparable harm » to the government and the public.
