Washington 9th of September : The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has appealed a decision to select an expert master to look over documents FBI agents took from the former President’s Mar-a-Lago home on the 8th of August.The DOJ also requested District Judge Aileen Cannon to suspend her order, which prevents federal prosecutors from further examining documents marked as classified, which were seized from an estate in Palm Beach, Florida according to Xinhua news agency.
“Without a stay in place, the public and the government will also suffer irreparable damage from the inordinate delay to the criminal probe,” the DOJ wrote in an application on Thursday.
“Any delay could pose serious concerns in the context of an investigation into improper handling of classified documents.”
Cannon has stated on Monday that the court “authorizes the appointment of an individual master to examine the confiscated property for personal belongings and documents, as well as potentially confidential materials that could be the subject of claims of executive or attorney-client privilege”.
The judge also ordered the DOJ and Trump’s lawyers to file a joint document on Friday, which includes a proposed master list of presidential candidates.
Trump has claimed that the FBI of conducting a search of the president’s Mar-a-Lago house for political reasons and claiming that certain of documents are protected under attorney-client privilege as well as executive privilege.
The DOJ had previously stated that Trump was not able to exercise the power to claim executive privilege based on his tenure in the White House since he is no anymore in the White House.
A preliminary examination of the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI was reported to have found 184 distinct documents with markings of classification with 67 markings as “CONFIDENTIAL”,”CONFIDENTIAL,” 92 “SECRET” and 25 “TOP SECRET” according to an affidavit redacted.
Trump is not denying any wrongdoing and said all documents seized were classified.
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