Judge Dismisses Trump's Mar-a-Lago Attempts To Prevent Justice Department From Reviewing Classified Documents

A federal judge on Monday ordered the dismissal of former United States President Donald Trump's lawsuit that challenged the government's access to materials that were seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The situation comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Dec. 1, reversed an order that was previously issued by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. The judge had called for the appointment of a special master to oversee the review of classified documents seized from the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate and to prohibit any review until it was done.

Legal Blow to Trump

A legal expert, Kimberley Wehle, described how the panel of judges "utterly demolished" the Republican businessman and Cannon. She added that the overall picture of the situation was not advantageous to Trump. This is because the latest order basically removes the handbrake and sets loose Special Counsel Smith on all 22,000 documents.

The panel concluded after dismantling the defense that all of their arguments were a sideshow. They wrote that the "law is clear," arguing that a rule cannot be written that would allow any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the warrant has been executed, as per Yahoo News.

The latest order came four days after the former president declined to appeal a higher-court ruling that forced the cancellation of the appointment of a special master. Judge Cannon, who is a Trump appointee, signed a one-page order for the dismissal of the case of lack of jurisdiction.

The order was filed in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach and ordered the termination of all hearings, deadlines, and motions that were pending in the case. This includes the former president's attempts to obtain an unredacted version of the search warrant affidavit that was issued to search his Mar-a-Lago estate.

According to CNN, the latest ruling finally closes the book on what many considered to be a rare bright spot for Trump in his continued attempts to block government investigations into his conduct. Cannon also drew criticism over her handling of the litigation that Trump brought days after the FBI raided the former president's Florida resort.

Mar-a-Lago Documents

Cannon previously tapped Raymond Dearie, a senior judge in Brooklyn, to be the special master and hash out disputes between Trump and the U.S. Justice Department. The arguments were over whether certain documents among those seized should be withheld from federal investigators.

Despite Dearie being tasked with making recommendations on those questions, Judge Cannon was the final arbiter of the disputes. However, this was only until the ruling that found the special master appointment to be unjustified.

The ruling also comes as a national security official who worked as a homeland security and counter-terrorism adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, Olivia Troye, has opened up about the Trump White House.

During an interview, she said that the previous administration has been frivolous with important government documents. The 45-year-old said that at the time she worked with the Trump administration, it was a known fact that her colleagues were seemingly careless when handling sensitive documents, CNBC reported.