U.S. court lets investigators resume review of classified records in Trump probe

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department can resume reviewing classified records seized by the FBI from former President Donald Trump’s Florida home pending appeal, a federal court ruled on Wednesday, giving a boost to the criminal investigation into whether the records were mishandled or compromised.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request by federal prosecutors to block a District Court judge’s stay barring them from using the classified documents in their probe until an independent arbiter, called a special master, vets the materials to weed out any that could be deemed privileged and withheld from investigators.

The appeals court also said it would agree to reverse a portion of the lower court’s order that required the government to hand over records with classification markings for the special master’s review.

“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,” the three-judge panel wrote in its order.

“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,” the panel said.

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