STAY OUT, SCOTUS: DOJ tells Supreme Court to reject Trump’s plea to hear Mar-A-Lago case
The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject Donald Trump’s request that it intervene in the dispute over classified documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last summer.
Trump asked the Supreme Court to step in on his behalf regarding the Justice Department’s ability to retain roughly 100 classified documents it was already reviewing when their investigation was temporarily halted by his request for a special master. Regardless of how long he’s able to delay, it ultimately won’t matter, say legal experts.
It was also revealed that Trump suggested swapping the files that he took from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida in exchange for “sensitive” documents about the FBI investigation of his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, according to The New York Times. While the National Archives continued to push Trump to return the scores of official documents that were being stored at Mar-a-Lago, Trump was allegedly “frustrated” by the government agency’s refusal to disclose documents that he felt would back up his claims.
Trump told advisors that in order to obtain access to those documents, he would give the archives the boxes of materials that were stored at Mar-a-Lago, according to the newspaper. Trump’s aides didn’t go through with the proposal, but it was one of many ways in which Trump repeatedly delayed calls by the National Archives to turn over the documents located at his personal residence.
On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case about whether the Justice Department can use “filter teams,” such as the one enlisted by the DOJ to begin a review of the evidence collected from Mar-a-Lago to determine whether they are privileged. The DOJ used a filter team to begin a review of the evidence collected during the execution of a search warrant at Trump’s residence before he successfully pushed for a “special master” to review the documents he said were privileged.
DOJ Supreme Court Due Day. At the direction of Clarence Thomas, DOJ has until 5:00 ET today to respond to Trump's request for the US Supreme Court to intervene on the Mar-a-Lago documents. It should be a doozy.
— Don Lewis (@DonLew87) October 11, 2022
Trump had also specifically requested Justice Clarence Thomas oversee the case, which is a clear conflict of interest as Thomas is married to Trump devotee Ginni Thomas, who recently met with the January 6th House Select Committee about her involvement in the organization of the January 6th “Stop the Steal” rally.
DOJ response to Trump's supreme court plea is pretty fun pic.twitter.com/cjNHwPb7bw
— Sarah Burris 🌻 (@SarahBurris) October 11, 2022
Legal experts predict another strike out for Trump as he continues to delay the inevitable consequences of taking the classified documents, particularly if they haven’t all been recovered as recent reports have suggested.
MISSING CALL LOGS FOUND? Remember when the 1/6 committee told us that some of trumps call logs from the day of the insurrection were missing? And remember when trump said he didn’t want to return documents to NARA because they’d end up with the committee? Check this out: 1/ pic.twitter.com/ju5AMHhygn
— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) October 3, 2022
Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks told MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez why the Justice Department’s appeal has a better shot: “I don’t see any possible ground” for Trump to win, she said.
Tara Dublin is a woefully underappreciated and unrepresented writer currently shopping a super cool novel that has nothing to do with politics while also fighting fascism on the daily.
Follow her on Twitter @taradublinrocks.
