Justice Dept. asks court to end arbiter’s review of Trump documents

The U.S. Justice Department on Friday asked an appeals court to end a third-party review of documents seized from Donald Trump’s Florida home, arguing that a judge should not have appointed an independent arbiter as the former president battles a criminal investigation into his handling of sensitive government records.
At issue is the appointment of a special master by the Florida-based federal judge presiding over Trump’s legal effort to restrict access to documents seized by FBI agents during a court-approved Aug. 8 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
The Justice Department in its petition to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon exceeded her authority when she named the special master to vet the more than 11,000 seized documents. That move essentially paused the criminal investigation by blocking the
department’s access to the records, about 100 of which were marked as classified.