portion causing the most serious and immediate harm to the government and the public. one, restricting the government s review and use of records bearing classification markings. and two, requiring the government to disclose those records for a special master review process. the doj asking for the court to allow its criminal investigators to review the materials marked as classified and for the court to exclude those documents from the special master s review of the search. it is a fight that could go all the way to the supreme court, so we must talk about this now. i want to get right to cnn s justice correspondent jessica schneider, cnn legal analyst and former assistant u.s. attorney jeff, rogers, and special watergate prosecutor nic acerman. jessica, i want to start with you. what can you tell us what the doj is saying in this filing tonight? they re tell this court, look, we want two things the lower court judge eileen canon refused to give us last night. they want to
boxes. it s also relating to the january 6th situation. i mean, if you had to pick one person that the government is going to focus on, bring charges against and turn into a government witness, it s going to be mark meadows. i mean, he originally started to cooperate with the january 6th committee, gave them a bunch of e-mails. but then when donald trump started going at him on the internet and calling him all kinds of names and backing him into a corner, he just clammed up. but he is a weak individual, and i vote him most likely to turn and be a government witness before this is all over. thank you, nick. thank you, francesca, thank you, jennifer. i appreciate it. see you guys soon. we ve got a lot more coming tonight on the doj asking the appeals court to intervene on the documents.
records for a special master review process. so don, this is a limited appeal and it s possible that with this limited appeal, that the 11th circuit might act quickly here. jessica, the doj seemed to have a message for the district judge eileen cannon. what did it say? right, it was interesting. in the last part of this appeal here doj seemed to really take a shot at the lower court judge here and they said she was plainly wrong even stepping into this dispute when it comes to classified documents. and they said they re clearly the government s property. the former president has no claim to it. they wrote it this way plaintiff has identified no recognizable harm for allowing investigators to continue and review this same subset of seized material, records. that is why courts have exercised great caution before interfering in civil actions in criminal investigations or cases here. they re really implying this judge eileen canon, she s a trump appointee, they re
tonight? they re tell this court, look, we want two things the lower court judge eileen canon refused to give us last night. they want to do it unimpeded meaning they want to resume using those 100 classified documents that judge canon has said they can t use whether it s in grand jury proceedings or of witnesses. so they want the 11th circuit to reverse that. plus they re saying they shouldn t have to turn over the classified documents to trump s legal team or the special master here who s been appointed. they say the lower court judge was just wrong to order the disclosure of those highly sensitive documents ongoing in the midst of an investigation. what s more interesting here on a broader scale doj is really arguing that courts shouldn t be stepping in here at all on this issue because the documents belong to the government. so they wrote it this way. they say allowing the government to use and review the records bearing classification markings
this mar-a-lago classified document fight. so what do you know? yeah, so there really seems to be strategic about this. they re asking the 11th circuit to step in immediately and do two things. first, they want the court to clear the way so prosecutors can resume using classified documents that they recovered from mar-a-lago as part of the criminal probe. the lower court judge halted that and said you can t use those classified documents and doj is also saying trump s legal team and the newly appointed special master should not have access at all to those documents. they said although the government believes the district court fundamentally erred in appointing a special master restricting the government s view of use of classified records bearing classification markings, and, two, requiring the government to disclose those