US Supreme Court rejects Donald Trump request to intervene in Mar-a-Lago case
- The justices denied the ex-president’s emergency bid to allow an independent arbiter to vet classified documents the FBI seized from his home
- The decision saw no publicly noted dissents by any of the 9 justices, including the 3 appointed by Trump
The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected former president Donald Trump’s bid to have an independent arbiter vet classified documents that were seized by the FBI from his Florida home as part of his legal battle against investigators probing his handling of sensitive government records.
The justices in a brief order denied Trump’s October 4 emergency request to lift a lower court’s decision that prevented the arbiter from reviewing more than 100 documents marked as classified that were among the roughly 11,000 records seized at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on August 8.
There were no publicly noted dissents by any of the nine justices to the decision, which came two days after the US Justice Department urged them to deny Trump’s request and keep the classified documents out of the hands of the arbiter, known as a special master.
The court’s 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump, who left office in January 2021.
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FBI raids former US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home
Federal officials obtained a court-approved warrant to search Trump’s residence in a Justice Department criminal investigation after suspecting that not all classified documents in his possession had been returned after his presidency ended.