Trump's attempt to edit on the fly by fiddling with his documents was rejected by the Supreme Court

Trump's request to intervene in the Mar-a-Lago documents case was rejected with a one sentence order

By Kelly McClure

Nights & Weekends Editor

Published October 13, 2022 5:47PM (EDT)

Former President Donald Trump speaks during the America First Agenda Summit organized by America First Policy Institute AFPI on Tuesday, July 26, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump speaks during the America First Agenda Summit organized by America First Policy Institute AFPI on Tuesday, July 26, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Trump's request to reverse a federal appeals court and allow a special master to look over 100 of the classified documents taken from the White House to an unsecured area in Mar-a-Lago has been denied by the Supreme Court.

The "emergency request" was made by Trump in an effort to allow his legal team time to determine which, if any, of the classified documents could be marked as "off limits" to prosecutors, but the effort was benched with a one-sentence refusal on Thursday.

"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,'" the DOJ said earlier this week via reporting by CNN

Trump, who once had access to classified documents such as these, but now lacks jurisdiction himself, pushed against the Supreme Court last week with a statement from his team saying "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."

"The Government argued on appeal, without explanation, that showing the purportedly classified documents to Special Master Judge Dearie would harm national security," Trump's attorneys said in a quote obtained from CNN. 


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The fact that the denial came down from the Supreme Court during the House Select Committee hearing on the events of January 6 speaks to this particular Thursday being a bad one for Team Trump.

"Chef's kiss trifecta for the US democratic project, today," Tweets Economic & Investment Strategist Refilwe Moloto."

Trump "has not even attempted to show that he has a need to know the information contained in the classified documents," wrote the appeals court panel . . . The United States has sufficiently explained how and why its national security review is inextricably intertwined with its criminal investigation."


By Kelly McClure

Kelly McClure is Salon's Nights and Weekends Editor covering daily news, politics and culture. Her work has been featured in Vulture, The A.V. Club, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Nylon, Vice, and elsewhere. She is the author of Something is Always Happening Somewhere.

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