Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to intervene in his dispute with the Biden Justice Department over the records seized in the FBI’s unprecedented raid of Mar-A-Lago.
The request Tuesday asked the high court to overturn a lower court order that limited the scope of an outside “special master” review, NBC reported.
Trump asks SCOTUS to intervene in Mar-A-Lago case
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave the DOJ until Tuesday, October 11, to respond.
Trump’s filing notes the “unprecedented circumstances presented by this case — an investigation of the Forty-Fifth President of the United States by the administration of his political rival and successor.”
The former president asked the Supreme Court to overturn in part a ruling from the 11th Circuit Appeals court that blocked a court-appointed special master from reviewing roughly 100 “classified” records. Trump said the decision “impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the special master.”
The 11th Circuit’s ruling also removed a block on the DOJ using the classified records. The block was imposed by Florida judge Aileen Cannon, who has been excoriated by the left as a Trump sycophant for her decisions in the case.
Trump argued the 11th Circuit “lacked jurisdiction to review” Cannon’s order appointing a special master, in which the judge said that the extraordinary nature of a criminal investigation into a former president merited judicial oversight.
Trump says public trust at stake
The DOJ has hotly protested that argument, citing vague “national security concerns.”
Trump did not ask the Supreme Court to stop the DOJ from accessing the classified records — only to let the special master see them.
Trump’s request comes after the DOJ, in its latest aggressive move, asked the 11th Circuit to dismiss the “special master” completely, saying the government still needs to access thousands of non-classified records.
In his filing, Trump warned that “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 of justice.”
“In sum, the Government has attempted to criminalize a document management dispute and now vehemently objects to a transparent process that provides much-needed oversight,” the filing says.