Trump asks judge to block DOJ from viewing classified records seized from Mar-a-Lago

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump on Monday asked a judge to continue blocking the Justice Department from reviewing classified documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon last week temporarily blocked the DOJ from using the records seized when the FBI searched Trump's home on Aug. 8 until a special master is able to review them. The DOJ challenged her order later in the week.

In a court filing Monday that called the Justice Department's investigation into Trump "unprecedented and misguided," Trump's lawyers claimed that "there still remains a disagreement as to the classification status of the documents" that bore classified markings. While Trump and his associates have claimed to the media that Trump, while president, declassified various documents, his lawyers did not make that claim explicitly.

The legal battle is over the government's investigation into how hundreds of pages of classified government records continued to be held at Mar-a-Lago, even after a Trump lawyer had certified in June that there were no more classified records at the estate. Cannon, a Trump appointee, granted Trump's request for a special master last Monday and temporarily blocked the government from using the classified files as part of its investigation.