WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Thursday freed the Justice Department to resume using the thousands of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in its criminal investigation following months of legal wrangling with the former president.
Trump appeared to drop the fight over the records, at least for now. His lawyers did not immediately challenge a Dec. 1 decision from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissing Trump’s case before the ruling officially took effect.
The 11th Circuit ordered an end to an outside special master’s review of the documents and lifted an injunction that had blocked investigators from using them in the criminal probe in the meantime. A three-judge panel ruled that a Florida federal judge lacked jurisdiction to intervene in the investigation at Trump’s request.
