Justice Department can resume reviewing classified records seized by the FBI from former President Donald Trump's Florida home pending appeal, a federal appellate court ruled on Wednesday, giving a boost to the criminal investigation into whether the records were mishandled or compromised.

District Judge Aileen Cannon's stay barring them from using the classified documents in their probe until an independent arbiter, called a special master, vets the materials to weed out any that could be deemed privileged and withheld from investigators.

The appeals court also said it would agree to reverse a portion of the lower court's order that required the government to hand over records with classification markings for the special master's review.

"We conclude that the United States would suffer irreparable harm from the district court’s restrictions on its access to this narrow—and potentially critical—set of materials, as well as the court’s requirement that the United States submit the classified records to the special master for review," the three-judge panel wrote.

In filings on Tuesday, Trump's lawyers urged the court to keep the stay in place and to allow them under the supervision of the special master, U.S Judge Raymond Dearie, to review all of the seized materials, including those marked classified.

8 at Trump's home at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, seizing more than 11,000 documents including about 100 marked as classified.

The search was part of a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally removed documents from the White House when he left office in January 2021 after his failed 2020 re-election bid and whether Trump tried to obstruct the probe.

Cannon, a Trump appointee herself, appointed Dearie to serve as special master in the case at Trump's request, despite the Justice Department's objections about a special master.

The Justice Department previously also raised strong objections to Cannon's demand that Dearie review the seized records for documents possibly covered by executive privilege, noting that Trump is a former president and the records do not belong to him.

"We decide only the traditional equitable considerations, including whether the United States has shown a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits, the harm each party might suffer from a stay, and where the public interest lies," the appeals court said.