Trump did not appeal an appeals court ruling over the FBI seizure of government documents marked as classified

A Florida federal judge dismissed former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit Monday over the FBI search for classified government documents at his private club, Mar-a-Lago.

Trump had launched the legal challenge to stop the federal criminal investigation into his possession of sensitive government documents after the end of his presidency.

The president briefly succeeded before a district court judge he appointed to the bench, but an appeals court this month ordered the case dismissed and found the judge had overstepped her bounds.

The former president did not appeal that ruling, effectively ending the first major legal battle over the highly charged criminal investigation into the former president.

Judge Aileen Cannon, who originally ruled in Trump’s favor in his suit, cited the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruling in a brief order dismissing the case.

In that unanimous appellate opinion issued earlier this month, the three-judge panel ruled that Cannon should never have taken the case to begin with.

“This appeal requires us to consider whether the district court had jurisdiction to block the United States from using lawfully seized records in a criminal investigation,” the opinion said. “The answer is no.”