美国第11巡回上诉法院的法官小组周四裁定推翻任命一名特别的船长负责审查联邦调查局没收的数千份文件来自前总统唐纳德·特朗普的Mar-a-Lago庄园。
由三名法官组成的小组，包括两名特朗普任命的法官，在没有巡回法院或最高法院干预的情况下，将在七天内生效。
“法律是明确的，”法官发现。“我们不能制定一条规则，允许搜查令的任何主体在执行搜查令后阻止政府调查。我们也不能制定一条只允许前总统这么做的规则。”
该命令有效地消除了联邦当局所称的主要障碍在他们正在进行的刑事调查中特朗普在卸任总统后是否非法保留了高度机密的记录，并阻挠政府恢复这些记录的努力。他否认有不当行为。
上诉法官在上周的听证会上发出了信号他们可能会下令结束特别硕士的审查。他们一再表示担心第三方法官的任命雷蒙德·迪尔里到1996年，佛罗里达州的美国地方法官艾琳·坎农没有任何明确的先例。
该小组对特朗普律师吉姆·特拉斯蒂(Jim Trusty)的说法表示怀疑，他将对特朗普住所的搜查描述为“一个特殊案件”，需要外部仲裁人的干预，以审查8月份扣押的所有材料。
坎农已经授权Dearie作为特别主人，评估从特朗普俱乐部拿走的大约13，000份材料，包括大约100份带有分类标记的文件。
作为他工作的一部分，Dearie应该分析是否有任何被拿走的文件引起了特权问题，无论是行政特权还是律师-客户特权。
周四的意见清楚地表明，上诉法官认为，坎农在任命特别法庭庭长时大大超出了她的管辖范围。
法官们写道，特朗普没有提出任何论据，也没有提供任何证据证明政府在进行搜查时对他的权利行使了“无情的漠视”，这将是法院对行政部门执法职能进行如此特殊干预的必要标准。
他们认为特朗普法律团队的论点是“次要的”,即《总统记录法》赋予了他对文件的一些个人占有权，并指出，即使他是正确的，这些物品仍有可能根据搜查令被扣押。
“文件的个人或总统身份并不改变政府根据有正当理由支持的授权令没收文件的权力;搜查令授权扣押个人记录是理所当然的，”他们写道。
法官们还讨论了特朗普作为前总统的身份是否会创造某种豁免或例外，以证明司法干预搜查是合理的。
他们写道，“在一位前总统的家中执行逮捕令的确非同寻常，但不会影响我们的法律分析，也不会给司法机构干涉正在进行的调查的许可。”。“在这里创造一个特殊的例外将违背我们国家的基本原则，即我们的法律适用于”所有人，无论人数、财富或等级。"
Aerial view of former U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, Aug. 15, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla.
马尔科·贝洛/路透社
司法部指责特朗普的法律团队将特别主程序用作“骗局”，试图拖延他们调查的进展，并称坎农对特别主的任命是“对核心行政部门职能的特别司法入侵”。
第11巡回法院此前批准了DOJ的一项请求，即暂缓执行坎农的部分裁决，该裁决阻止政府在调查中使用从Mar-a-Lago回收的约100份带有分类标记的文件，并要求将这些文件移交给特别检察官Dearie。
特朗普的律师随后将该裁决上诉至最高法院，最高法院拒绝受理此事。
在那次裁决之后，联邦官员迅速提出加快上诉，要求第11巡回法院完全结束Dearie的审查，理由是政府无法获得从Mar-a-Lago没收的大约13，000份剩余的非机密文件，这妨碍了他们的调查。
当局现在可以使用这些文件作为证据，询问证人，并进一步调查特朗普决定从白宫移除数千份政府记录(包括一些涉及国家最受保护的秘密的标记)并将其存储在他的私人度假村的背后情况。
本月早些时候，司法部长梅里克·加兰任命了一名特别顾问，杰克·史密斯，监督对Mar-a-Lago的调查，以及对特朗普及其盟友推翻他2020年大选失利的努力的单独调查。
上周，特朗普的律师分别要求坎农命令司法部交出完整的、未经编辑的宣誓书，该宣誓书用于证明对特朗普住所的搜查令是正当的。坎农尚未对他们的动议做出回应，但司法部表示担心，披露证词中的细节可能会危及他们的调查，并可能危及合作的证人。
Trump special master overturned by appeals court in Mar-a-Lago documents investigation
A panel of judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appealsruled Thursday to overturnthe appointment of a special master tasked withreviewing thousands of documents seized by the FBIfrom former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate this summer.
The ruling by the three-judge panel, including two Trump appointees, goes into effect in seven days, absent intervention by the full circuit court or the Supreme Court.
"The law is clear," the judges found. "We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so."
The order effectively eliminates what federal authorities had described as a major obstaclein their ongoing criminal investigationinto whether Trump illegally retained highly classified records after leaving the presidency and obstructed efforts by the government to recover them. He denies wrongdoing.
The appellate judgeshad signaled in a hearing last weekthat they were likely to order an end to the special master's review. They repeatedly expressed concern that the appointment of third-party judgeRaymond Dearieby U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida lacked any clear precedent.
The panel was skeptical of assertions from Trump's lawyer Jim Trusty, who described the search of Trump's home as "an extraordinary case" that warranted intervention from an outside arbiter to review all the materials seized in August.
Cannon had empowered Dearie, as special master, to evaluate the approximately 13,000 materials taken from Trump's club, including roughly 100 documents with classification markings.
As part of his work, Dearie was supposed to analyze if any of the documents that were taken raised privilege concerns, either executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.
Thursday's opinion makes clear the appellate judges' belief that Cannon stepped widely outside of her jurisdiction in appointing the special master.
The judges wrote that Trump had made no argument and presented no proof that the government exercised a "callous disregard" for his rights in carrying out the search, which would be the necessary standard for such an extraordinary intervention by the courts into the executive branch's law enforcement functions.
They dismissed as a "sideshow" Trump's legal team's argument that the Presidential Records Act gives him some right of personal possession over the documents, noting that even if he was correct -- the items would still likely be subject to seizure under the search warrant.
"The status of a document as personal or presidential does not alter the authority of the government to seize it under a warrant supported by probable cause; search warrants authorize the seizure of personal records as a matter of course," they wrote.
The judges also addressed whether Trump's status as a former president would create some kind of exemption or carve-out to justify judicial intervention in the search.
"It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president—but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation," they wrote. "To create a special exception here would defy our Nation’s foundational principle that our law applies “to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.”
The Department of Justice had accused Trump's legal team of using the special master proceedings as a "shell game" to try and delay the progress of their investigation and called Cannon's appointment of a special master an "extraordinary judicial intrusion into a core executive branch function."
The 11th Circuit previously granted a request from the DOJ to stay portions of a ruling by Cannon that blocked the government from using the roughly 100 documents with classification markings recovered from Mar-a-Lago in its investigation and demanded they be handed over to special master Dearie.
Trump's attorneys then appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which declined to take up the matter.
Following that ruling, federal officials quickly moved for an expedited appeal to have the 11th Circuit end Dearie's review in its entirety -- arguing that the government's inability to access the roughly 13,000 remaining non-classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago was hampering their investigation.
Authorities will now be able to use the documents as evidence as they question witnesses and further examine the circumstances behind Trump's decision to remove thousands of government records -- including some with markings that refer to the nation's most protected secrets -- from the White House and store them at his private resort.
Earlier this month, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel,Jack Smith, to oversee the Mar-a-Lago investigation as well as a separate probe into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Last week, Trump's lawyers separately asked Cannon to order the Justice Department to hand over the full, unredacted affidavit that was used to justify the search warrant on Trump's residence. Cannon has yet to respond to their motion, but the Justice Department has expressed concern that disclosure of the details in the affidavit could jeopardize their investigation and potentially endanger cooperating witnesses.
