Former US President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to intervene in his legal battle with the Justice Department over classified documents seized by the FBI in August during a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump lawyers on Tuesday asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a recent Court of Appeal ruling. That court ruled on Sept. 21 that more than 100 of the seized documents classified as classified may be used by the Justice Department in its investigation into Trump’s handling of government documents — without an independent arbitrator evaluating them first.
Also read: US Justice may continue investigation into secret documents with Trump, court rules
Trump wants the Supreme Court to rule that this “special master,” who was appointed to the case at his request, will receive the classified documents for review, as well as the approximately 11,000 other documents seized by the FBI.
A lower court previously ruled that the Department of Justice could not examine the classified documents until the special master, Raymond Dearie, had had a chance to extract documents that might fall under presidential privilege. The Court of Appeals overruled that ruling and prevented Dearie from accessing the classified documents. That was a major setback for Trump.
Personal or Presidential Documents
Lawyers for the former president, in their request to the Supreme Court, write that Dearie should be granted access to the documents labeled “confidential,” “secret,” or “top secret,” “to determine whether documents classified as classified are indeed , and regardless of their classified status, determine whether they are personal documents or presidential documents.”
Supreme Judge Clarence Thomas, who is reviewing the request, asked the Justice Department on Tuesday evening to provide a response by October 11.
The Mar-a-Lago search, which a judge had cleared, was part of a judicial investigation into whether Trump unlawfully held White House documents when he left Washington in January 2021 after his death. election defeat. It is examined who has had access to the secret documents and whether they have been viewed by unauthorized persons.