US Supreme Court rejects Trump application to reinstate special master review of 100+ classified Mar-a-Lago documents News
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US Supreme Court rejects Trump application to reinstate special master review of 100+ classified Mar-a-Lago documents

The US Supreme Court Thursday denied former President Donald Trump’s application to bring approximately 100 classified documents back within special master review. Trump appealed to the high court after the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a partial stay allowing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to continue examining the documents without special master review.

The Eleventh Circuit’s September 21 order allowed DOJ access to 100 seized documents, but the remaining roughly 11,000 documents are still under review by the appointed special master. On Tuesday, the DOJ asked the Supreme Court not to intervene in the dispute. In Trump’s October 4 motion, he asked the Supreme Court to allow the special master to review all seized documents from Mar-a-Lago, including the 100 documents that the Eleventh Circuit permitted the DOJ to review. Trump’s legal team argued that the Eleventh Circuit did not have jurisdiction to allow the DOJ to review the documents with classification markings.

A federal judge authorized the appointment of a special master to review the seized documents on September 5 and prevented the DOJ from reviewing them. The DOJ filed for a partial stay of the September 5 order, which was rejected, before filing an appeal with the Eleventh Circuit on September 16.