US Appeals Court reverses Special Master order in FBI Raid Case in legal blow to Donald Trump

A U.S. federal appeals court on Thursday unanimously ended an independent review of documents seized from former president Donald Trump's Florida estate, removing a hurdle the Justice Department said had delayed its criminal investigation into the retention of top-secret government information.

The decision by the three-judge panel represents a significant win for federal prosecutors, clearing the way for them to use as part of their investigation the entire tranche of documents seized during an Aug. 8 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.

It also amounts to a sharp repudiation of arguments by Trump's lawyers, who for months had said that the former president was entitled to have a so-called "special master" conduct a neutral review of the thousands of documents taken from the property.

The ruling from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit had been expected given the skeptical questions the judges directed at a Trump lawyer during arguments last week, and because two of the three judges on the panel had already ruled in favour of the Justice Department in an earlier dispute over the special master.

The decision was a unanimous opinion from the three-judge panel of Republican appointees, including two who were selected by Trump. In it, the court rejected each argument by Trump and his attorneys for why a special master was necessary, including his claims that the seized records were protected by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.

"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," the judges wrote.

Trump is likely to appeal the 11th Circuit's decision to the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court. The 11th Circuit said its order will not take effect for seven days, during which Trump could seek to challenge it.

A Trump spokesperson called the decision "purely procedural and based only on jurisdiction," and said it did not address the merits of the case.

Trump "will continue to fight against the weaponized Department of 'Justice,' while standing for America and Americans," the spokesperson added.

In October, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump's effort to get the high court to hear an emergency appeal related to the search. 

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