In August, former President Donald Trump filed an emergency petition to mediate the controversy over the classified documents of his Mar-a-Lago estate.
However, the Supreme Court rejected his request on Thursday.
The request
Trump has asked judges to overturn a federal appeals court to allow a special master to review more than 100 confidential documents.
The move could have opened the door for his legal team to examine the data and give them reasons to argue that prosecutors should have barred them from a criminal trial.
Instead, the court rejected the request.
For the moment, the special master does not take possession of the acts.
Court decision
The decision pulled the court away from the political battle as the conservative-leaning 6-3 court approval ratings plunged to new lows.
Liberals, including President Joe Biden, have attacked the institution’s legitimacy.
The court order was issued during the House Investigative Commission hearing on the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The Justice Department has asked the court to stay out of the dispute while legal proceedings are underway, calling the records “extremely sensitive.”
Citing an earlier case in a written statement earlier this week, the DOJ stated:
“As this Court has emphasized, courts should be cautious before ‘insisting upon an examination of records whose disclosure would jeopardize national security ‘even by the judge alone, in chambers.'”
Orders
US District Judge Aileen Cannon recently issued two warrants.
She authorized a special master to examine the seized documents, including classified documents.
Previously, the judge temporarily ordered the Justice Department not to use the subset of documents in the ongoing criminal investigation.
However, at the request of the Department of Justice, a jury of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to freeze some of the injunctions among the pending cases.
Trump claimed that as a former president, he had the right to possess certain government documents.
He said the appeals court overruled his powers by ruling against him.
Last week, Donald Trump’s team told the Supreme Court:
“The Eleventh Circuit lacked jurisdiction to review, much less stay, an interlocutory order of the District Court providing for the Special Master to review materials seized from President Trump’s home.”
They also said Raymond Dearie, the senior US judge appointed special master, would be “substantially impaired” by an appeals court order.
The team added that this would slow down “ongoing time-sensitive works.”
DOJ filing
The filing reads:
“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.”
US Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar said Cannon made a “fundamental error” in appointing a special master.
She also pointed out that the Justice Department is appealing the decision in lower courts.
Meanwhile, the DOJ argued that the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit found that Cannon abused its discretion.
The record indicates that Cannon committed “a serious and unwarranted intrusion on the Executive Branch’s authority to control the use and distribution of extraordinarily sensitive government records.”
Cannon’s decision to block the Justice Department’s access to confidential information seized in Mar-a-Lago slowed their ability to work on the case and gave Trump a head start to fine-tune his defense.
The Justice Department also submitted its request to the Supreme Court “concerns an unprecedented order by the district court restricting the Executive Branch’s use of its own highly classified records in an ongoing criminal investigation and directing the dissemination of those records outside the Executive Branch for a special-master review.”
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