The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday denied Donald Trump’s request to reverse a lower court’s ruling that prevented Special Master Raymond Dearie from reviewing classified records stolen from Mar-a-Lago.
Trump's team requested the Supreme Court reverse a federal appeals court ruling to allow the DOJ to review classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.
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The appeals court said that subset of records could only be reviewed by the Department of Justice, which is conducting an investigation.
“The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on September 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
Meanwhile …
From the US Supreme Court.
Refusing Donald Trump’s request pic.twitter.com/pYxEl6J3Ac
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 13, 2022
BREAKING: The Supreme Court rejected former President Donald Trump's plea to step into the legal fight over the FBI search of his Florida estate. https://t.co/1mAwtxmiCd
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 13, 2022
CNBC reported:
The Supreme Court on Thursday denied a request by former President Donald Trump to vacate a lower appeals court ruling in a case related to the FBI raid and seizure of documents from his Florida residence last month.
The 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals had barred a so-called special master, who was appointed by a federal judge, from reviewing more than 100 classified documents as part of an examination of the more than 11,000 government records seized in the raid to determine which should be barred from being used in a criminal probe of Trump.
Trump’s lawyers last week asked the Supreme Court to reverse that decision arguing that it “impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the special master.”
Those attorneys also argued that “any limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of materials seized in the extraordinary raid of a president’s home erodes public confidence in our system of justice.”
Judge Aileen Cannon previously issued an injunction and blocked the DOJ's access to the classified documents.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Cannon’s injunction, once again gave the DOJ access to the documents, and barred Special Master Raymond Dearie from reviewing the classified records.
He only has access to the non-classified documents.
From the Associated Press:
The move Thursday appears to greatly reduce the potential impact of the special master process to the ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation into the classified documents.
A federal appeals court had already restored the department’s access to the classified documents, which had been investigators’ primary goal. And the Supreme Court’s decision to stay out of the fray ensures that the special master will not have access to those same records as the FBI and Justice Department evaluate if criminal charges are merited.
A three-judge panel from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last month limited the special master’s review to the much larger tranche of non-classified documents. The judges, including two Trump appointees, sided with the Justice Department, which had argued there was no legal basis for the special master to conduct his own review of the classified records.
But Trump’s lawyers said in their application to the Supreme Court that it was essential for the special master to have access to the classified records to “determine whether documents bearing classification markings are in fact classified, and regardless of classification, whether those records are personal records or Presidential records.”
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