Breakdown with ‘Appointed By’ and shows 6:
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
Thar we go then! 
I think it depends on the appeal. I would imagine they will try to get a quick ruling overturning the portion of Cannon’s decision that limits the DOJ’s ability to continue its investigation. If so, and the ruling goes their way, it actually would speed up the overall timeline of the investigation.
Also, I think we can assume they are not filing any charges prior to the November election. In which case I’m not sure it really matters to the overall timeline.
On preview, from the WashPost article:
Cannon will likely refuse this stay, but that refusal will likely be the thrust of the appeal.
Basically, “We are OK with a Special Master looking at everything except the classified stuff, and we need to be able to continue to investigate while the SM reviews the potentially privileged documents”.
I do think they want to challenge the rather bold claim that a former POTUS can declare any sort of executive privilege over government documents. It seems insane, and worth fighting against.
Looks like the only judges who were contested by the Democrats, during their appointment, were Britt Grant and Andrew Brasher (with a little snubbing thrown at Mr. Luck).
It seems real real fucked for a judge to rule that the DOJ should stop an investigation. The Trumpification of this country is staggering.
When I used to practice regularly in the Circuit Courts, we had a pretty good idea how the various Circuits - and various panels within the circuits - would come down on various issues. Same w/ Dot judges.
I imagine it is either likely that DOJ expects the 11th - generally - to be sympathetic to their appeal. Or, for whatever reason they want to make a stink about this. But that isn’t the way DOJ generally rolls. They tend to be pretty conservative in their litigation choices.
I’m certainly no prognosticator, but there have been plenty of Trump-appointed judges who have ruled against him. For Loose Cannon’s ruling to be upheld, either a non-Trump-appointed judge would have to agree with her (which seems really unlikely, given the prevailing legal sentiment), or every single Trump-appointed judge on the appeals court would have to agree with her. (which seems more likely, but still unlikely).
You can read the motion to stay pending appeal here: Motion to Stay – #69 in Trump v. United States (S.D. Fla., 9:22-cv-81294) – CourtListener.com
If you’re a good law talker guy you can probably see the outline of their appeal. It sounds like they are giving Cannon one week (Sep 17) to rule on the request for a partial stay before they plead for the Circuit Court to intervene.
This would not generally go to the whole Circuit, just a three judge panel, chosen at random.
I don’t know about that. I would expect Trump’s team to take as long as possible to submit their list of candidates for who the Special Master would be, to delay the selection as long as possible, to appeal the selection, and to write the instructions so that the SM has to read every page of every document in every box. They would draw the process out in every way possible. For the DOJ to appeal and overturn the appoint of a Special Master might get the investigation back on track much sooner.
I think Trump’s legal resources are finally starting to run dry. Much as he might want to do this, it might not be feasible. And, in the grand scheme of things, this is one of the lesser battles that he’s fighting.
So much the better, from Trump’s point of view. He’ll need time to find new lawyers. We’re still waiting for him to release his taxes; to get a Special Master to complete the work would mean dragging Trump kicking and screaming every step of the way.
Slate discussed the pros and cons of an appeal a couple days ago, and identified two big factors arguing for an appeal:
…There will undoubtedly be disagreements over particular documents that will then need to be referred by the special master for resolution by the judge, and those decisions could then be subject to appeal. Nobody knows how much time that review will require. And the DOJ may not be able to afford leaving this order’s precedent on the books, given its numerous analytical flaws.
If there is one aspect of the decision that summarizes why we must take exception, it is the order’s repeated statements about how special a former president is…To the contrary, in the United States, everybody should be subject to the same legal rules… If for no other reason than that, the DOJ decision on appealing the court decision should consider the foundational principle here at stake. In the United States, no one is above the law.
I imagine the big one is the Judge entertaining executive privilege applying to the documents. I think it’s legally very clear that there is no executive privilege and the DOJ needs to appeal that so executive privilege does not apply to these documents. If you don’t, and the Judge allows executive privilege, much harder to have evidence of a crime, if any. Of course, you can make it worse by appealing it and the appellate (or Sup Ct) agreeing with trial court.
This was my thought as well. A broad view of executive privilege in the hands of a biased special master could result in pretty much all of the documents being ruled inadmissible.
Another take on the Judge’s ruling by Lawfare: Everything Wrong With Judge Cannon’s Ruling
Error #1: The court has no jurisdiction over this matter.
To put the matter simply, Cannon’s analysis here has turned a rule designed to offer a pre-indictment remedy for Fourth Amendment violations into a vehicle for people who have not yet even been indicted to file collateral challenges that have the capacity to prohibit the government from conducting the very investigation that would otherwise properly result in their indictment.Error #2: A district court has no authority to block a criminal investigation.
The judge has found that Trump has established a likelihood of succeeding on the merits of a claim he believes he cannot make until a special master is appointed to help him decide whether such a claim is worth bringing.Error #3: The ruling is simply incoherent with respect to executive privilege.
Her analysis of executive privilege reflects a deep ignorance of the subject. Discussing Cannon’s ruling on Twitter, Lawfare’s Jonathan Shaub—an expert on executive privilege issues—described the judge’s reasoning on the subject as expressing “a complete misunderstanding of the nature of executive privilege.”Conclusion
To put the matter simply, Judge Cannon’s opinion is wrong in almost every way it is possible for it to be wrong. How exactly the Justice Department handles the matter involves tactical and strategic considerations related to venue, the specific needs of the investigation, and the broader interests of the federal government. One way or another, however, expect the government to move decisively to erase this opinion from the books—and from the path of the FBI.
In-depth, but fairly legalese. Put simply, it’s blatantly wrong. The Judge is likely incredibly ignorant/very political - which is normal stuff. Or, this feels almost feels like baiting DOJ to appeal which is sinister since that would be smart and calculated. You don’t want this ruling affirmed at an appellate/sup ct level, and yet it can easily happened with the cover of “unprecedented” - it’s not, except the ex-President part.
All of that information (to the extent it’s public) is about documents at Mar-a-Lago. Is there any information about documents at Trump Tower or Bedford Golf Court that come within that category? Need evidence in support.
“In at least some of the folders” is an admission that we don’t know if there were documents in all of the folders. Given what others have said in this thread about the ease of getting folders if you’re working in a classified area, and assuming that’s accurate, then empty folders by themselves are not proof that there were documents in them
Assumes facts not in evidence. Do we know if folders for classified documents are recorded at that level of detail? Or would folders be like envelopes? In fact, wouldn’t it be better not to have the information in the folder written on the outside of the folder, to reduce the chance that someone would see it? Dunno; but that is the sort of detail that needs to be included in an affidavit, to make the argument that an empty folder once held classified information, and isn’t just a souvenir for an outgoing Prez.
That is not the only problem. The DOJ needs evidence, not just that documents are missing, but that they will be found at Trump Tower or Bedford Golf Course.
I think they need reasonable suspicion, not iron clad evidence. Otherwise, very few search warrants would ever be given. I don’t think they need to go before a judge and swear that they know for a fact and certainty that the documents they seek will be found in the search.
Another link about asking for the judge to reconsider some things. Hopefully not redundant.
I took a look at the warrant application for the search the FBI did on Reality Winner because it seems like the wide net cast in that case would not have been approved by a judge based on the constraints and evidence-standard you are alleging.
The FBI gave evidence that Winner was likely the only employee who sent an email to The Intercept who also accessed the documents in the relevant time-frame, and used that evidence as probable cause to search all of her electronic devices, her house and her car. The warrant application also stated:
They didn’t show that each specific location/item to be searched/seized had specific evidence that likely contained the evidence they were looking for; they merely showed that they had evidence that Winner was likely involved in the crime and that it was reasonable to expect that some of the evidence the FBI would need to prosecute her was in all or some of what they wanted to search.