Judge Aileen Cannon blocks the State Department from reviewing classified documents recovered by the FBI
Federal judge for the Southern District of Florida Aileen Cannon has rejected this Thursday the request of the US Department of State to access the classified documents stolen from the Mar-a-Lago residence of former United States President Donald Trump. Instead, Cannon has appointed a special expert proposed by the Trump legal team to handle review the confidentiality of documents before being returned to federal agents, as the former US president had requested, CNN has reported.
Former federal judge in New York Raymond Dearie, Trump’s proposed candidate, has finally been chosen to act as an expert and review the confiscated documents, although he must do so before November 30. The decision has taken place after the Department of Justice accepted last Monday the proposal of Trump’s legal team to appoint Raymond Dearie as an expert witness. His proposals as experts, retired federal judges Barbara Jones and Thomas Griffith, did not go ahead, according to the aforementioned chain.
Dearie was proposed by Trump’s lawyers last week, amid a legal battle over whether someone outside the investigation should review the documents to determine if any of them should be withheld from federal prosecutors investigating possible mishandling of material. classified and the possible concealment, manipulation or destruction of government records. The 78-year-old expert-appointed judge served until recently as a judge in the Brooklyn federal court, albeit in a higher state. He was nominated to the New York Federal Court by former President Ronald Reagan.
The decision to appoint an expert, however, delays, at least temporarily, a high-profile criminal investigation about the possible mishandling of classified information in the former president’s house and club in Florida, as well as the possible concealment, manipulation or destruction of government records.
Among the documents FBI agents collected during the raid on the Mar-a-Lago residence last month, some confidential files that would even describe the military defenses of a foreign governmentincluding its nuclear capabilities.