Trump’s seized paper appeal is denied by the US Supreme Court: Former President Donald Trump‘s plea to have an independent arbitrator analyze classified FBI files collected from his Florida estate refuse by the US Supreme Court on Thursday.
The justices refused Trump’s October 4 emergency request to overturn a lower court’s ruling that barred the arbitrator from seeing more than 100 classified materials from Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.
Two days before, the US Justice Department advised them to reject Trump’s request and hide the sensitive material from the arbitrator, a “special master.”
None of the nine justices publicly said they disagreed with the decision.
Three justices chosen by Trump, who leaves office in January 2021, make up the court’s 6-3 conservative majority.
As part of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Federal authorities asked a court for permission to search Trump’s house. They worry that not all of the secret materials in his possession had turn in after he left office.
Investigators looked for signs of possible crimes, like illegally keeping important information for national security and making it harder for the government to do its job. Trump has said that the inquiry politically motivated and has denied any misconduct.
Trump filed a lawsuit on August 22 to stop the Justice Department from getting access to the records while it looks into the crime.
Last month, US District Judge Aileen Cannon granted Trump’s plea to halt the government’s probe of the confiscated data. The special master also determines which are personal, secret, or protected by presidential privilege.
This legal theory keeps some White House communications from make public, making them inaccessible to investigators.
Raymond Dearie, a former US judge, nominate as the special master by Cannon, who appoint to the court by Trump. Later, Cannon turned down a request from the Justice Department to change part of her order.
The government said that her order was making it harder to reduce threats to national security that could happen if the papers marked private, secret, or top secret were shown to the wrong people.
Without Dearie’s evaluation, Cannon said she could not agree that the materials were secret.
The Justice Department filed an appeal with the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. As a result, Cannon’s decisions about the secret materials put on hold.
This allowed the government to begin its investigation while preventing Dearie from seeing the records. The 11th Circuit emphasized making sure sensitive information keep private and that the department’s investigation wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Even though the outgoing president said that Trump had declassified the documents. The 11th Circuit noted that there was “no evidence” of that and that the claim was “a red herring” because declassifying an official document wouldn’t change its content or make it personal.
No matter how secret the documents are, it is against the law to mishandle them. According to the three rules that the FBI used to get the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.
The government is also looking into who had access to the documents. If they corrupted, and whether any are still missing.
Trump’s attorneys wrote to the Supreme Court previously that the Justice Department “tried to criminalize a disagreement over how to handle information and now aggressively opposes a transparent mechanism that would offer much-needed supervision.” Dearie should permit to see the data.