司法部周四对一名联邦法官的裁决提出上诉在对被没收文件的争议中来自唐纳德·特朗普的Mar-a-Lago庄园，政府声称那里有高度机密的记录被不恰当地关押着。
本周早些时候，美国地方法院法官艾琳·坎农(Aileen Cannon)批准了特朗普的请求，即由一名特别大师审查被拿走的东西，包括可能受行政特权保护的物品，尽管特朗普不再是总统，也从未声称对任何具体记录拥有特权。
这项裁决禁止政府在刑事调查中进一步使用被扣押的文件，受到了双方法律专家的广泛批评，包括特朗普的前司法部长威廉·巴尔。
坎农写道:“法院特此授权任命一名特别检察官，审查被扣押的个人物品和文件以及可能享有特权的材料，这些材料受到律师-客户和/或行政特权的影响。”
DOJ的上诉将在第11巡回法庭进行。
联邦检察官周四还要求坎农暂停她的裁决，禁止政府进一步审查联邦调查局搜查Mar-a-Lago期间拍摄的带有分类标记的文件。卡农要求执法部门向特别长官披露这些材料。
DOJ在周四的法庭文件中表示，如果坎农在9月15日之前不批准延期，他们将“打算向第十一巡回法院寻求救济”
检察官在一份21页的动议中写道，特朗普“没有也不能断言他拥有或拥有机密记录的任何所有者权益”。
坎农要求特朗普的团队在周一早上之前对延期请求做出回应。
DOJ并不寻求暂停将非机密文件移交给一名指定的特别检察官，但表示，如果坎农不同意他们的暂停，“将对政府和公众造成最直接和最严重的伤害”
坎农在她之前的命令中指出，任命一个独立的第三方不会妨碍情报部门正在进行的分类审查和国家安全评估，这些审查和评估是在上个月从特朗普家中检索到的。
法官要求DOJ和川普的团队在周五之前商议并提交一份拟议中的特别硕士候选人的联合名单，以及一份概述特别硕士职责和限制的拟议命令。
无法弥补的伤害
在周四的动议中，DOJ多次试图削弱坎农在批准任命特别检察官的裁决中的地位，并引用了如果她拒绝批准他们的延期请求，对国家安全和正在进行的刑事调查造成“不可挽回的伤害”的风险。
虽然他们表示，他们相对不在乎从Mar-a-Lago没收的非机密记录被移交给一名特别的主人，但检察官认为，他们所说的在特朗普那里发现的机密记录对他们正在进行的情报评估和刑事调查都至关重要，特朗普对这些记录绝对没有合法的法律权利。
检察官写道，虽然坎农批准情报界(IC)继续对文件进行单独评估，但这“不能轻易与DOJ和联邦调查局的刑事调查分开”，而且出于大量的谨慎，IC被迫暂时暂停审查。
“因此，对机密记录适用禁令将削弱政府进行有效的国家安全风险评估和分类审查的能力，并可能阻止政府根据审查采取必要的补救措施——这有可能对我们的国家安全和情报利益造成不可挽回的损害，”DOJ的申请文件称。
他们指出，这项禁令可能会使联邦调查局无法确定除了在Mar-a-Lago已经扣押的那些记录之外，“是否存在任何其他没有妥善储存的机密记录”,这反映了调查人员的担忧，即特朗普可能从白宫拿走了更多他们尚未找到的材料。(美国广播公司新闻此前报道称，联邦执法部门担心机密记录可能存在于Mar-a-Lago以外的地方。特朗普否认有任何不当行为。)
“除了其他事情，机密记录正是政府正在进行的调查的主题，”DOJ的文件中写道。
该部门表示，部分暂停不会伤害特朗普，因为它不会干扰特别检察官对任何其他记录的审查，包括那些受律师-客户特权约束的记录，因为政府已经能够审查一个月的分类记录——“这些记录无可争议地属于政府，而不是(特朗普)。”
他们说，能够使用标记为机密的文件是他们正在进行的调查的一个重要因素，特别是关于未经授权保留国防信息的两项潜在罪行——“机密记录不仅仅是相关的证据;他们正是相关刑事法规的对象”——和阻挠:“同样，这里讨论的被扣押的机密记录——传票明确包含的每一项——是调查的核心。”
检察官写道，如果特朗普认为他对这些文件拥有有效的行政特权，他有足够的时间做出这样的断言，包括在DOJ 5月份发出大陪审团传票之后。
“相反，在2022年6月3日，原告的律师向政府出示了一套机密记录，原告的托管人证明，在经过'勤奋的搜索'后，已经出示了'(任何)和所有响应文件，”文件称。“在政府没收了原告未能出示的额外机密记录后，原告现在不能坚持认为，在搜查中获得的机密记录是对大陪审团传票的回应，根据行政特权不受政府审查。”
在最新文件的脚注中，DOJ官员写道，他们并不认为坎农的命令禁止他们的部门、联邦调查局或国家情报总监办公室向国会领导人通报有关所发现记录的情报监督责任，这表明他们可能会在某个时候寻求向委员会成员通报。
到目前为止的争议
特朗普的团队在8月8日搜查他的家两周后提出了一个特殊主人的请求。
DOJ从一开始就强烈反对这一请求，认为这一任命是“不必要的，会严重损害重要的政府利益，包括国家安全利益”，因为它会导致调查延迟。
司法部上周表示，一个负责识别在搜查Mar-a-Lago时被扣押的潜在律师-客户特权材料的小组已经完成了审查，并正在解决可能的特权纠纷。
DOJ还辩称，川普没有资格要求特别的主人，因为这些文件“不再是他的”，属于联邦政府。
“他不再是总统，因为他不再是总统，他没有权利拿走那些文件，”DOJ律师杰伊·布拉特说，双方于9月1日在法庭上对峙。
另一方面，特朗普的律师表示，第三方审查是必要的，以处理在搜查过程中扣押的潜在特权材料，包括律师-客户和行政特权。
特朗普法律团队的新成员克里斯托弗·基斯(Christopher Kise)在出庭期间提到了“公众对DOJ缺乏信任”以及“真正或感觉缺乏透明度”。
特朗普的一名律师一度将前总统拒绝向国家档案馆移交文件比作“过期的图书馆书籍”。
特朗普的团队庆祝坎农的裁决，而一大批法律专家和观察人士批评她走得太远。
特朗普的前司法部长巴尔在福克斯新闻频道露面时批评了这一决定:“我认为，这个意见是错误的，我认为政府应该上诉。它在很多方面都存在严重缺陷。”
DOJ will appeal judge's decision to grant Trump's special master request to review seized docs
The Department of Justice on Thursday moved to appeal a federal judge's rulingin the dispute over documents seizedfrom Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, where the government claims highly classified recordswere being improperly held.
Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted Trump's request for a special master to review what was taken, including for items that might be covered by executive privilege, even though Trump is no longer the president and has never asserted privilege over any specific records.
The ruling, which enjoined the government from further use of the seized documents as part of its criminal investigation, was widely criticized by legal experts on both sides -- including Trump’s former Attorney General William Barr.
"The Court hereby authorizes the appointment of a special master to review the seized property for personal items and documents and potentially privileged material subject to claims of attorney-client and/or executive privilege," Cannon wrote.
The DOJ's appeal will go before the 11th Circuit.
Federal prosecutors also requested Thursday for Cannon to stay the portion of her ruling enjoining the government from further review of the documents bearing classification markings taken during the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Cannon had required law enforcement to disclose those materials to the special master.
The DOJ said in Thursday's court papers that if Cannon doesn't grant a stay by Sept. 15, they will "intend to seek relief from the Eleventh Circuit."
Trump "does not and could not assert that he owns or has any possessory interest in classified records" prosecutors wrote in a 21-page motion.
Cannon gave Trump's team until Monday morning to respond to the request for a stay.
The DOJ is not seeking a stay on the handover of non-classified documents to an appointed special master but said that if Cannon doesn't grant their stay it "will cause the most immediate and serious harms to the government and the public."
Cannon noted in her previous order that the appointment of an independent third party would not impede the ongoing classification review and national security assessments being conducted by the intelligence community on what was retrieved from Trump's home last month.
The judge had given DOJ and Trump's team until Friday to confer and submit a joint list of proposed special master candidates and a proposed order outlining the special master's duties and limitations.
'Irreparable harm'
In Thursday's motion, the DOJ repeatedly sought to undercut Cannon's position in her ruling approving the appointment of a special master -- and cited the risk of "irreparable harm" to national security and the ongoing criminal investigation if she declines to grant their request for a stay.
While they signaled they care relatively little about non-classified records seized from Mar-a-Lago being handed over to a special master, prosecutors argued that the classified records they say were found with Trump are critical to both their ongoing intelligence assessment and the criminal investigation and Trump has absolutely no legitimate legal claim to them.
While Cannon approved the intelligence community (IC) to continue with its separate evaluation of the documents, that "cannot be readily segregated" from the DOJ and FBI criminal investigation and the IC has been forced to temporarily pause its review out of an abundance of caution, prosecutors wrote.
"The application of the injunction to classified records would thus frustrate the government's ability to conduct an effective national security risk assessment and classification review and could preclude the government from taking necessary remedial steps in light of that review—risking irreparable harm to our national security and intelligence interests," the DOJ filing states.
They noted that the injunction could prevent the FBI from being able to identify "the existence of any additional classified records that are not being properly stored" past those that were already seized at Mar-a-Lago -- reflecting investigators' concerns that there could be more materials taken by Trump from the White House that they still have yet to recover. (ABC News previously reported federal law enforcement has some worry for the potential that classified records could potentially be somewhere other than Mar-a-Lago. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.)
"Among other things, the classified records are the very subject of the government's ongoing investigation," the DOJ filing states.
The department said a partial stay would not harm Trump as it wouldn't disturb the special master's review of any other records, including those subject to attorney-client privilege, as the government has already been able to review the classified records for a month -- "which, again, indisputably belong to the government, not [Trump]."
They said that being able to use the documents that were marked classified is an essential element of their ongoing investigation, specifically with respect to the two potential crimes of unauthorized retention of national defense information -- "the classified records are not merely relevant evidence; they are the very objects of the relevant criminal statute" -- and obstruction: "Again, the seized classified records at issue here—each of which the subpoena plainly encompassed—are central to that investigation."
Prosecutors wrote that if Trump believed he ever had a valid assertion of executive privilege over the documents, he had more than enough time to make such assertions including after the DOJ issued its grand jury subpoena in May.
"Instead, on June 3, 2022, Plaintiff's counsel produced a set of classified records to the government, and Plaintiff's custodian certified that '[a]ny and all responsive documents' had been produced after a 'diligent search,'" the filing states. "Plaintiff cannot now maintain—following the government's seizure of additional classified records that Plaintiff failed to produce—that classified records obtained in the search, which were responsive to the grand jury subpoena, are shielded from the government's review by executive privilege."
In a footnote in the latest filing, DOJ officials wrote that they don't interpret Cannon's order as barring their department, the FBI or the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from briefing congressional leaders with intelligence oversight responsibilities regarding the records uncovered -- suggesting they may seek to brief committee members at some point.
The dispute so far
Trump’s team made the request for a special master two weeks after the Aug. 8 search of his home.
The DOJ strongly opposed the request from the start, arguing the appointment would be “unnecessary and significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests” by causing a delay in their investigation.
The department said last week that a team tasked with identifying potential attorney-client privileged materials that were seized in the search of Mar-a-Lago had already completed its review and was in the process of addressing possible privilege disputes.
The DOJ also argued that Trump had no standing to ask for a special master because the documents “aren’t his” anymore and belong to the federal government.
"He is no longer the president and because he was no longer the president he did not have the right to take those documents,” said DOJ lawyer Jay Bratt as the two sides faced off in court on Sept. 1.
Trump's lawyers, on the other hand, had said the third-party review was needed to deal with potentially privileged materials seized during the search, including both attorney-client and executive privilege.
Christopher Kise, a new addition to Trump’s legal team, cited a "public lack of faith" in the DOJ and "real or perceived lack of transparency” during the court appearance.
At one point, a Trump lawyer compared the former president's refusal to turn over documents to the National Archives to an "overdue library book."
Trump’s team has celebrated Cannon’s ruling, while a swath of legal experts and observers criticized her for going too far.
Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, criticized the decision during an appearance on Fox News: "The opinion, I think, was wrong, and I think the government should appeal it. It's deeply flawed in a number of ways."
