A US appeals court has dealt a blow to Donald Trump, reversing a judge’s appointment of an independent arbiter to vet documents seized by the FBI from his Florida home and allowing all of the records to be used in a criminal investigation of the former president.

A three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Justice Department in its challenge to a September ruling by US District Judge Aileen Cannon to appoint a “special master” to review the records to decide if some should be kept from investigators.

The court on Thursday also overturned Judge Cannon’s decision to bar investigators from accessing most of the records pending the review.

Mr Trump faces a federal criminal investigation into his retention of sensitive government records after leaving office in January 2021, including whether he violated a 1917 law called the Espionage Act that makes it a crime to release information harmful to national security.

Investigators also are looking into potential unlawful obstruction of the probe.

The 11th Circuit said Cannon lacked the authority to grant Mr Trump’s request for a special master.

“The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant,” the panel wrote. “Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”

The 11th Circuit ordered the dismissal of Mr Trump’s lawsuit filed after the August 8 raid of his Florida estate.

Mr Trump is likely to appeal the 11th Circuit’s action to the conservative-majority US Supreme Court.

The Justice Department and representatives for Mr Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Three days after Mr Trump announced a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, US Attorney-General Merrick Garland on November 18 appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to oversee the documents criminal investigation and another one also relating to Mr Trump.

FBI agents seized about 11,000 records, including about 100 marked as classified, during the Aug. 8 court-approved search at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Judge Cannon appointed Raymond Dearie, another federal judge, at Mr Trump’s request to review the records to consider whether any should be walled off from the criminal investigation.

Judge Cannon also halted prosecutors from using the documents taken in the search as part of their criminal investigation until the conclusion of Judge Dearie’s review, although an appeals court later gave the government access to the materials marked as classified.

Mr Trump’s lawyers have asked Judge Dearie to find that some documents are protected by executive privilege. They argued he designated certain records as his personal papers, a claim the Justice Department disputes.

Mr Trump sued two weeks after the Mar-a-Lago raid, arguing his status as a former president required a third-party review of the documents.

While Mr Trump has claimed he declassified the records and the FBI might have planted evidence, his lawyers have not repeated those statements in court.