Donald Trump asks US Supreme Court to intervene in Mar-a-Lago records fight
- The ex-president wants the justices to let a special master review seized documents with classified markings, escalating a showdown with the Justice Department
- Over 100 files labelled confidential, secret or top secret were among the 11,000 records FBI agents found in a search of Trump’s Florida home
Former US president Donald Trump on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to intervene in his fight with the Justice Department over classified documents seized from his Florida home as part of a criminal investigation into his handling of government records.
Trump filed an emergency request asking the justices to block part of a lower court’s ruling that prevented an independent arbiter requested by Trump, known as a special master, from vetting more than 100 documents marked as classified that were among 11,000 records seized by FBI agents at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on August 8.
The Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals on September 21 repudiated a decision by US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who had temporarily barred the department from examining the seized classified documents until the special master, who was requested by Trump, had weeded out any that could be deemed privileged and withheld from investigators.
Trump’s lawyers in Tuesday’s filing said the Justice Department has “attempted to criminalise a document management dispute and now vehemently objects to a transparent process that provides much-needed oversight”.
The court-approved Mar-a-Lago search was conducted as part of a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally retained 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.
The investigation seeks to determine who accessed classified materials, whether they were compromised and if any remain unaccounted for.