(FiveNation.com)- Former President Donald Trump lost another challenge to the raid that the FBI conducted at his home at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — the judge who granted Trump’s request to have a special master granted in the case over classified documents — tossed the former president’s lawsuit that ultimately challenged the raid altogether.
On Monday, Cannon issued a one-page order, explaining that she had to dismiss this case because of a “lack of jurisdiction.”
This decision comes after a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court issued a December 1 opinion that overturned Cannon’s decision to grant Trump a special master in the case to review all the materials that FBI agents seized in their search.
Just a week after that happened, a full Atlanta-based federal appeals court ultimately ended the special master’s review in totality. Trump’s legal team could’ve challenged that decision up to the Supreme Court, but they decided not to do that.
Thanks to Cannon’s Monday ruling, the special master case is now completely dismissed in all forms. That person was originally tasked with reviewing all the documents that were seized from Trump’s home in South Florida, to see whether any of them were protected by executive or attorney-client privilege.
The Department of Justice appealed Cannon’s decision to appoint the special master, arguing that the appointment would result in the investigation being slowed while there were concerns around national security. As such, the DOJ argued the special master appointment could cause “irreparable harm” to both the public and the government.
Now that Cannon made this latest ruling, the DOJ now has full access to all of the records they seized from Trump’s home and office at Mar-a-Lago.
The loss was a particular hard one for Trump to swallow. He appointed Cannon to her position, and also appointed two of the three judges on the panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The third judge on that panel was appointed by another conservative president, George W. Bush.
In making their decision, the panel at the appeals court said any defendants could challenge the findings of the search after they’ve been formally charged. To this point, Trump hasn’t been indicted in this case.
The panel was very critical of the decision Cannon made to grant the special master. They claimed she never had the jurisdiction to even intervene in the case. As they wrote:
“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 warrant in the case was unsealed by the DOJ after Trump made public the fact that the search had taken place on August 8. In doing so, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the request was made “in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter.”
