Donald Trump is not having the best week, and it’s about to get at least a little bit worse.
On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that the Empire State was suing Donald Trump, his organization, and even his children in a tax evasion scheme.
Now, just a day later, a panel of judges has reversed a previous court order regarding the review of documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate.
In a stark repudiation of Donald Trump’s legal arguments, a federal appeals court on Wednesday permitted the Justice Department to resume its use of classified records seized from the former president’s Florida estate as part of its ongoing criminal investigation.
The ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit amounts to an overwhelming victory for the Justice Department, clearing the way for investigators to continue scrutinizing the documents as they consider whether to bring criminal charges over the storage of of top-secret records at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. In lifting a hold on a core aspect of the department’s probe, the court removed an obstacle that could have delayed the investigation by weeks.
There is still some serious discussion about the potential classification of the items as well.
The appeals court also pointedly noted that Trump had presented no evidence that he had declassified the sensitive records, as he maintained as recently as Wednesday, and rejected the possibility that Trump could have an “individual interest in or need for” the roughly 100 documents with classification markings that were seized by the FBI in its Aug. 8 search of the Palm Beach property.
Trump has insisted on several occasions that these documents had all been declassified, but the DOJ hasn’t yet accepted his proclamation.
