WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court connected Thursday rejected erstwhile President Donald Trump’s plea to measurement into the ineligible combat implicit the FBI hunt of his Florida estate.
The justices did not different remark successful turning distant Trump’s exigency appeal.
Trump had pressed the tribunal connected an contented relating to classified documents seized successful the hunt authorized by a national justice of Mar-a-Lago.
The Trump squad was asking the justices to overturn a little tribunal ruling and licence an autarkic arbiter, oregon peculiar master, to reappraisal the astir 100 documents with classified markings that were taken successful the Aug. 8 hunt of Mar-a-Lago.
The determination Thursday appears to greatly trim the imaginable interaction of the peculiar maestro process to the ongoing Justice Department transgression probe into the classifed documents.
A national appeals tribunal had already restored the department’s entree to the classified documents, which had been investigators’ superior goal. And the Supreme Court’s determination to enactment retired of the fray ensures that the peculiar maestro volition not person entree to those aforesaid records arsenic the FBI and Justice Department measure if transgression charges are merited.
A three-judge sheet from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit past period constricted the peculiar master’s reappraisal to the overmuch larger tranche of non-classified documents. The judges, including 2 Trump appointees, sided with the Justice Department, which had argued determination was nary ineligible ground for the peculiar maestro to behaviour his ain reappraisal of the classified records.
But Trump’s lawyers said successful their exertion to the Supreme Court that it was indispensable for the peculiar maestro to person entree to the classified records to “determine whether documents bearing classification markings are successful information classified, and careless of classification, whether those records are idiosyncratic records oregon Presidential records.”
The Justice Department said successful a Supreme Court filing that Trump’s petition had nary merit.
The FBI says it seized astir 11,000 documents, including astir 100 with classification markings, during its search. The Trump squad asked a justice successful Florida, Aileen Cannon, to name a peculiar maestro to bash an autarkic reappraisal of the records.
Cannon subsequently assigned a seasoned Brooklyn judge, Raymond Dearie, to reappraisal the records and segregate those that whitethorn beryllium protected by claims of attorney-client privilege and enforcement privilege. The Justice Department objected to Dearie’s quality to reappraisal the classified records, prompting the 11th Circuit to broadside with the department.
The section besides is appealing Cannon’s full ruling to the 11th Circuit.
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.