After raid on Mar-a-Lago
Dispute over secret documents: Supreme Court rejects urgent application from Donald Trump
Chaos in the private residence: In early August, the FBI confiscated numerous top-secret documents on Donald Trump’s estate – which is also a private club.
© Steve Helber/AP/DPA
Former US President Donald Trump suffered a legal defeat in a dispute over the evaluation of confiscated secret documents. The country’s Supreme Court has dismissed an urgent request by the ex-president to intervene in the case.
Former US President Donald Trump has suffered defeat in the US Supreme Court in a dispute over official documents confiscated from his mansion. The Supreme Court in Washington on Thursday rejected Trump’s request to intervene in the case, the court said. Specifically, the question was whether a special expert would have access to around a hundred secret documents confiscated in Trump’s luxury estate Mar-a-Lago in the state of Florida. The court did not provide an explanation as to why it rejected the application.
Trump’s struggle for the “Special Master”
FBI investigators searched Mar-a-Lago on August 8 and confiscated thousands of documents. These are papers Trump took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his term in office, although outgoing presidents are required to turn over all official records to the National Archives.
Trump then went to court and requested that a special expert (“Special Master”) review the documents and that the documents be withdrawn from investigators’ access until then. A federal judge in Florida agreed with Trump. The Justice Department then appealed. An appellate court subsequently ordered that the documents classified as secret be withdrawn from the access of the special expert and that federal investigators can continue to evaluate them.
Trump, on the other hand, went to the Supreme Court last week with an urgent application. The responsible constitutional judge Clarence Thomas – one of the most conservative judges on the Supreme Court – now rejected the ex-president’s application. As is usual in such cases, there was no justification for the decision.
Trump describes raid in Mar-a-Lago as politically motivated
During the Mar-a-Lago raid, the FBI seized dozens of files marked “top secret,” “secret,” or “confidential.” According to media reports, a top-secret document on another country’s nuclear weapons was also found on Trump’s premises.
The ex-president is suspected of violating an espionage law that sets strict standards for the retention of national security documents. US Presidents are required to hand over all official documents, including emails and letters, to the National Archives upon leaving office.
However, Trump describes the raid as politically motivated. He accuses President Joe Biden’s Democrats of abusing the judiciary to prevent him from running for president again in 2024.