A federal judge in Florida on Monday officially tossed out a lawsuit brought by former President Trump over the FBI’s August 8 search for classified documents at his country club residence, Mar-a-Lago.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon officially ended a review of the documents which she had ordered by assigning a special master to examine for potential removal any of the 11,000 documents taken that might have fallen under the classifications of personal, executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.
On December 1, the 11th Cirtcuit court of appeals halted the special master review with a 23-page unanimous opinion that soundly criticized Judge Cannon’s order, stating, “The law is clear…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 appeals panel gave Trump a week to appeal to the Supreme Court by Thursday, but he declined. Judge Cannon formally dismissed the case Monday.
