The criminal investigation into approximately 100 classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago is ON like fucking DONKEY KONG!!
Yesterday, three judges from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the government’s request for a partial stay of Judge Aileen Cannon’s batshit Labor Day ruling which coddled #FPOTUS...
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Following the execution of a search warrant at the residence of Plaintiff-Appellee, former President Donald J. Trump, Plaintiff moved for the appointment of a special master to review the documents that Defendant-Appellant United States of America seized.The district court granted that motion in substantial part. Now, the United States moves for a partial stay of the district court’s order as it relates to the roughly one-hundred documents bearing classification markings. We decide only the narrow question presented: whether the United States has established that it is entitled to a stay of the district court’s order, to the extent that it (1) requires the government to submit for the special master’s review the documents with classification markings and (2) enjoins the United States from using that subset of documents in a criminal investigation. We conclude that it has.
We stress the limited nature of our review: this matter comes to us on a motion for a partial stay pending appeal. We cannot (and do not) decide the merits of this case. We decide only the traditional equitable considerations, including whether the United States has shown a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits, the harm each party might suffer from a stay, and where the public interest lies.
For the reasons we explain below, we grant the United States’s motion for a partial stay pending appeal.
The panel of appellate judges determined that the government would likely win on appeal because, in regards to the classified documents at the least, Judge Aileen Cannon lacked equitable jurisdiction...
In sum, none of the Richey factors favor exercising equitable jurisdiction over this case. Consequently, the United States is substantially likely to succeed in showing that the district court abused its discretion in exercising jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s motion as it concerns the classified documents.
That sounds like a thoroughly scathing rebuke because that’s exactly what it is...
They also noted that since Team Trump never filed a Rule 41(g) motion the Richey rules aren’t applicable, but if they were...
A. The United States has established a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.
B. The United States would suffer irreparable injury in the absence of a stay.
C. Plaintiff has not shown that he will suffer a substantial injury as a result of the limited stay.
D. The public interest favors a stay.
The 11th Circuit appears to have accepted the government’s legal arguments in their entirety and thoroughly rejected all of Team Trump’s...
No party has offered anything beyond speculation to undermine the United States’s representation—supported by sworn testimony—that findings from the criminal investigation may be critical to its national-security review.
The DOJ will maintain complete control of the classified documents, pending the appeal...
In sum, given the long-recognized “compelling interest in protecting . . . the secrecy of information important to our national security,” Snepp v. United States, 444 U.S. 507, 509 n.3 (1980), we conclude that the United States would suffer irreparable harm from the district court’s restrictions on its access to this narrow—and potentially critical—set of materials, as well as the court’s requirement that the United States submit the classified records to the special master for review.
#FPOTUS can suck it….
First, as we have explained, Plaintiff does not have a possessory interest in the documents at issue, so he does not suffer a cognizable harm if the United States reviews documents he neither owns nor has a personal interest in.
Second, we find unpersuasive Plaintiff’s insistence that he would be harmed by a criminal investigation. “Bearing the discomfiture and cost of a prosecution for crime even by an innocent person is one of the painful obligations of citizenship.” Cobbledick v.United States, 309 U.S. 323, 325 (1940).
Third, because of the nature of the classified materials at issue here and based on the record, we have no reason to expect that the United States’s use of these records imposes the risk of disclosure to the United States of Plaintiff’s privileged information.
National Security is the highest priority...
It is self-evident that the public has a strong interest in ensuring that the storage of the classified records did not result in “exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” Ascertaining that necessarily involves reviewing the documents, determining who had access to them and when, and deciding which (if any) sources or methods are compromised. See Kohler Decl. ¶¶ 6–9. For these reasons, we conclude that the public interest favors a stay.
This order only grants the DOJ’s request for a partial stay… The government’s appeal is still pending.
Politico
Two of the three judges on the panel, Andrew Brasher and Britt Grant, were appointed to the court by Trump. The third, Robin Rosenbaum, was appointed by President Barack Obama. In the unanimous decision, the judges declared it “self-evident” that the public interest favored allowing the Justice Department to determine whether any of the records were improperly disclosed, risking national security damage.
(snip)
The 11th Circuit’s rules appear to preclude any attempt to ask the full bench of that court to reconsider the government’s motion, but Trump could seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court.
Team #FPOTUS will likely appeal this ruling, but I’m counting on their track record of epic sloppiness to royally fuck that up...