Lawyers for former President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to step into the legal fight over the classified documents seized during an FBI search of his Florida estate, escalating a dispute over the powers of an independent arbiter appointed to inspect the records. The Trump team asked the court to overturn a lower court ruling and permit an independent arbiter, or special master, to review the roughly 100 documents with classified markings that were taken in the Aug. 8 search, the AP reports. A three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last month limited the special master's review to the much larger tranche of non-classified documents. The FBI says it seized roughly 11,000 documents during its search.
The judges, including two Trump appointees, sided with the Justice Department, which had argued there was no legal basis for the special master to conduct his own review of the classified records. But Trump's lawyers said in their application to the Supreme Court that it was essential for the special master to have access to the classified records to "determine whether documents bearing classification markings are in fact classified, and regardless of classification, whether those records are personal records or Presidential records," the AP reports. "Since President Trump had absolute authority over classification decisions during his Presidency, the current status of any disputed document cannot possibly be determined solely by reference to the markings on that document," the application states.
The application states that without the special master review, "the unchallenged views of the current Justice Department would supersede the established authority of the Chief Executive." An independent review, the Trump team says, ensures a "transparent process that provides much-needed oversight." Trump’s lawyers submitted the Supreme Court application to Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees emergency matters from Florida and several other Southern states. Thomas can act on his own or, as is usually done, refer the emergency appeal to the rest of the court. (Trump has claimed that presidents can declassify documents just by thinking about it.)
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