The Supreme Court rejected Donald Trump’s request to have a special master review classified documents, in a ruling seen as a setback for the former president’s case.
The absence of a special master “impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work,” Trump’s legal team stated. Moreover, “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.”
Federal law states that White House documents “must be handed over to the National Archives” upon a president’s departure from office. The order pertains to about 100 classified documents from the larger body of 11,000 records federal agents seized from Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, in early August. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, 15 boxes of records were seized including items “marked as classified national security information.”
The raid on Mar-a-Lago was polarizing, with Trump opponents arguing it was a justified response to the former president’s lawlessness, while his allies argued it was an overly aggressive response to a pedestrian crime that has been committed by high-level politicians in the past.
This latest development coincided with the Justice Department returning the bulk of seized documents to the president’s legal team, setting in motion a three-week timer for which Trump must decide which records he wants to withhold from review.
The decision does not impact an earlier court ruling barring special master federal Judge Raymond Dearie from reviewing the seized document cache.