On Monday, the public learned that Donald Trump packed up the classified documents himself, tried to get an attorney to lie about returning everything, and that some of the items the National Archives was most interested in—including the letter from President Barack Obama and Trump’s correspondence with Kim Jung Un—are still missing. Naturally, this is the perfect time for Trump to take the whole thing to the Supreme Court and ask that they stop the Department of Justice from investigating possible criminal charges.
The application itself is full of the same kind of overbearing, half-baked language that has featured in every document that has come from Trump’s legal team in this ever-growing scandal, including claims that the 11th Circuit stay, rather than Judge Aileen Cannon’s extraordinary ruling, is a threat to legal precedent, and that the search itself “erodes public confidence in our system.”
There’s no reason to think the Supreme Court should consider this for a moment, or to believe that any kind of temporary injunction might be issued that would interfere in the work of the DOJ, or of special master Judge Raymond Dearie. Well, no reason except for the heading on the application:
In the application filed on Tuesday, Trump specifically asks that the Supreme Court vacate the stay that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted concerning part of the ruling by District Court Judge Aileen Cannon. Unfolding this:
If Trump gets his way, the 103 classified documents go back into the special master review and are unavailable to the Department of Justice until that review is completed. Thanks to Cannon extending her own deadline, that review is not expected to finish before mid-December. However, it’s extremely unlikely that even this Court would choose to overturn the appeals court ruling and side with Cannon.
What Trump seeks to gain with this action is the same thing he has been after at every stage: Time. But it’s extremely unlikely that he will get it this way. The Court already ruled against Trump in a related matter in January when it refused to block the release of White House records connected to January 6 and effectively (but not explicitly) rejected Trump’s arguments that he held executive privilege over those documents.
In this case, Thomas might fume and write some Trump-friendly response, but it is very unlikely there’s enough support for the Court to take up the case.
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Related Story: Trump personally packed classified documents, tried to get attorney to lie about what he took
The application itself is full of the same kind of overbearing, half-baked language that has featured in every document that has come from Trump’s legal team in this ever-growing scandal, including claims that the 11th Circuit stay, rather than Judge Aileen Cannon’s extraordinary ruling, is a threat to legal precedent, and that the search itself “erodes public confidence in our system.”
There’s no reason to think the Supreme Court should consider this for a moment, or to believe that any kind of temporary injunction might be issued that would interfere in the work of the DOJ, or of special master Judge Raymond Dearie. Well, no reason except for the heading on the application:
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In the application filed on Tuesday, Trump specifically asks that the Supreme Court vacate the stay that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted concerning part of the ruling by District Court Judge Aileen Cannon. Unfolding this:
- Despite having his search warrant issued by Judge Bruce Reinhart, who cooperated with Trump’s request to unseal the warrant and release portions to the public, Trump went judge shopping and took the case to Cannon, who proceeded to give him an incredible string of law-bending, precedent breaking rulings.
- Cannon told the Department of Justice they couldn’t use the classified documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago in criminal investigations until the special master process is complete, even though the DOJ warned that this represented a threat to national security.
- The DOJ appealed this to the 11th Circuit, which not only ruled in the DOJ’s favor and issued a stay of Cannon’s order, but slapped down Cannon’s ruling with the kind of language rarely heard from a high-level court. That court was also highly skeptical of the idea Trump had any ownership or need for this material, saying, “We cannot discern why plaintiff would have an individual interest in or need for any of the 100 documents with classification markings.”
- Now Trump wants that stay nixed by the Supreme Court, because having the 11th Circuit review Cannon’s work was “compromising the integrity of the well-established policy against piecemeal appellate review.”
- The basis of Trump’s claim is actually a technical one, saying that the 11th Circuit “lacked jurisdiction to review the special master order” even though that was the specific topic of the DOJ’s appeal to that court.
If Trump gets his way, the 103 classified documents go back into the special master review and are unavailable to the Department of Justice until that review is completed. Thanks to Cannon extending her own deadline, that review is not expected to finish before mid-December. However, it’s extremely unlikely that even this Court would choose to overturn the appeals court ruling and side with Cannon.
What Trump seeks to gain with this action is the same thing he has been after at every stage: Time. But it’s extremely unlikely that he will get it this way. The Court already ruled against Trump in a related matter in January when it refused to block the release of White House records connected to January 6 and effectively (but not explicitly) rejected Trump’s arguments that he held executive privilege over those documents.
In this case, Thomas might fume and write some Trump-friendly response, but it is very unlikely there’s enough support for the Court to take up the case.
While Republicans try to overturn elections and make it harder to vote, volunteer to help save democracy by encouraging people to cast their ballots. Click here to view hundreds of local and national Get Out the Vote opportunities on the Daily Kos Mobilize feed, and sign up to volunteer on a national campaign or one near you.
Related Story: Trump personally packed classified documents, tried to get attorney to lie about what he took