Trump Controversy.
Tuesday, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to decline former president , Donald Trump, request that it become involved in the controversy surrounding the secret materials confiscated from his Mar-a-Lago home in August.
The Justice Department argued that the Supreme Court should uphold a federal appeals court decision blocking the special master’s access to such information while legal challenges are pending and referred to the records as “extraordinarily sensitive.”
The DOJ stated, citing a previous case, “as this Court has stressed, courts should be cautious before ‘insisting upon a review’ of documents whose disclosure might damage national security.
If granted, Trump’s legal team could study the records and argue that they should be exempt from disclosure to prosecutors in a criminal prosecution by having the special master assigned to the case review the more than 100 documents designated confidential.
Within days, the full court could take a decision. To approve Trump’s proposal, five justices would need to vote in favor.
The main defense offered by the Justice Department is that the appeals court was correct and that the Trump legal team erred in arguing that the Supreme Court should take the case into consideration.
In the brief on Tuesday, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar stated, “In fact, the best that applicant may prove concerning appellate jurisdiction in this matter is that it presents a ‘difficult’ question.
Discussion and Confusion.
Two orders that US District Judge Aileen Cannon made last month are under question. She has given the go-ahead for a special master to examine all seized items, even those with classified markings. Earlier, Cannon issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the Justice Department from using the subset of papers in connection with its ongoing criminal investigation.
However, in response to a request by the Justice Department, a panel of judges on the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals decided to freeze some of those orders while the legal fight is ongoing.
Trump has claimed that he might have got entitled to retain some federal records as a former president, including records that might have contained the most sensitive information about the nation.
Trump last week argued before the Supreme Court that “the Eleventh Circuit lacks authority to review, much less stay, an interlocutory order of the District Court providing for the Special Master to review evidence taken from President Trump’s home.”
The appeals court judgment will “seriously impede” Raymond Dearie, the senior US judge chosen to serve as special master, and it will slow “ongoing time-sensitive activity,” according to Trump’s team.
Any restrictions on the comprehensive and public scrutiny of the material gathered in the extraordinary raid on a President’s house, according to the lawsuit, “erode public trust in our system.”
Trump appointee Cannon, according to US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, “fundamentally erred” in naming a special master in the first place. She also emphasized that the Justice Department is contesting that ruling in lower courts.
The Supreme Judges.
The 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals judged Cannon to have “abused her discretion” and to have caused “a substantial and unjustified infringement on the Executive Branch’s ability to oversee the use and dissemination of exceptionally sensitive government documents,” the DOJ stated in its brief.
The DOJ’s capacity to work on the case has got dragged delayed by Cannon’s decision to deny them access to sensitive materials that got taken from Mar-a-Lago, giving Trump time to hone his arguments.
In his application to the Supreme Court, Trump asked the court to rule on “an unprecedented order by the district court restricting the Executive Branch’s use of its own highly classified records in an ongoing criminal investigation and directing the dissemination of those records outside the Executive Branch for a special-master review,” the DOJ said.
Trump Trying to Fight.
Trump’s appeal places the court back in the spotlight in a case involving the outgoing president, who selected Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett as three of the current justices. However, Justice Clarence Thomas was the only justice to publicly state that he would have decided in Trump’s favor in a previous appeal involving records pertaining to the House select committee on January 6. Trump lost that case.
Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said that even in the unlikely scenario that the Court sides with Trump this time, all that would mean is that Judge Dearie would get to review more of the papers. It would not affect what the Department of Justice does with those materials, according to the statement.
The parameters the court will take into account include whether there is a “fair possibility” that a majority of the court would find the decision below to be incorrect and if the rejection of the stay would cause “irreparable harm.”
Written By Lance Santoyo
Sources:
Bloomberg: DOJ Asks Supreme Court to Reject Trump Classified Records Review
Politico: DOJ to SCOTUS: Steer clear of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago case appeal
CNN: DOJ urges Supreme Court to stay out of Mar-a-Lago documents fight
Featured Image Courtesy of Gage Skidmore Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of wp paarz Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Discover more from Guardian Liberty Voice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.