Donald Trump Appeals to ‘My Justices’ On The U.S. Supreme Court In Classified Documents Case (Updated)

Rolling Stone reports, Trump Tries to Get Supreme Court to Bail Him Out of Mar-a-Lago Docs Mess:

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD Trump is petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn a court ruling granting the Department of Justice access to classified documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Trump filed an emergency request with the court on Tuesday, arguing that the 11th Circuit Court didn’t have the authority to reverse a restraining order barring the DOJ from reviewing a trove of classified documents Trump allegedly retained unlawfully after his departure from the presidency.

Trump takes an appeal to the Supreme Court over the Mar-a-Lago search. No surprise here, this was why he paid former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise $3 million to sign on, no one else on his team could handle this. SCOTUS should send him packing. https://t.co/bOk71j2OJQ

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) October 4, 2022

Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon last month appointed a “special master” to review the seized documents for any privilege issues, but the 11th Circuit Court ruled that the Justice Department could proceed with its review of about 100 of those documents. Trump’s legal team is arguing that the 11th Circuit Court didn’t have the power to do this, and that all of the seized documents should first be reviewed by the special master. “This application seeks to vacate only that portion of the Eleventh Circuit’s Stay Order limiting the scope of the Special Master’s review of the documents bearing classification markings,” the filing reads.

The appointment of Judge Raymond Dearie as special master came at a cost to Trump’s litigation strategy. On his first day adjudicating the role, Dearie dumped cold water on the former president’s public claims that he had managed to declassify the documents before leaving office. “If the government gives me prima facia evidence that they are classified documents, and you don’t advance any claim of declassification, I’m left with a prima facia case of classified documents,” Dearie said, “and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it.”

[It’s] unclear if the Supreme Court will take up the issue. The court is currently dominated by conservative justices, three of which Trump appointed over the course of his four years in office, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will indulge the former president.

The justice who receives Supreme Court emergency requests out of Florida is conservative Clarence Thomas, although he is almost guaranteed to refer the petition to the full court to consider.

Earlier this year, Trump asked the justices to block the release of documents from his White House to congressional US Capitol attack investigators. The high court rejected the request.

UPDATE: Now that the video is available, Former prosecutor predicts Trump is about to get ‘bench-slapped’ by the Supreme Court:

Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance spoke to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace about the recent filing to appeal the 11th Circuit Court’s opinion to allow the Justice Department to continue its work on the investigation of the theft of government documents.

Justice Clarence Thomas is the one who generally oversees the 11th Circuit, but Vance explained that folks shouldn’t read too much into that.

“He is our Circuit Justice in the 11th Circuit. These sorts of matters go to him initially. I would expect that unless he decides to dispense with this on his own, that he will take it to the full court and it won’t be a decision made just by Justice Thomas,” she told Wallace.

She went on to talk about an extremely technical legal issue from Trump’s $3 million lawyer.

He “is arguing this was not an appealable final order. You can’t just appeal any order that a trial court enters,” she said. “It has to be a certain type of order under 1292, a final appealable order, and they say this is not. Of course, the 11th Circuit has already addressed this issue and talked through the legal insider sort of issues involving granting or excluding a stay, which is what DOJ asked here. They wanted a stay of Judge [Aileen] Cannon’s orders that didn’t permit them to use classified documents. This goes up to the Supreme Court. It seems like it should be a pretty pro forma discussion.“

She went on to say that there’s a risk for Trump in this case and that nothing good will happen.

“And he could well find himself getting bench-slapped by the Supreme Court,” she continued. “One of the real issues working not too far below the surface is that Judge Cannon herself really should not have entertained jurisdiction to hear this matter at all. DOJ has argued from the get-go that she lacks equitable jurisdiction. She made a very shaky finding in this regard. Now that entire ball of wax is sitting in the Supreme Court, and I don’t think this will go well for Trump, even though this has been where he’s wanted to be all along thinking the court would be favorable towards him.”

Wallace asked Vance for reassurance that the Supreme Court would do the right thing. There is a very real question about the High Court after they moved to eliminate Roe v. Wade, which was widely supported by the overwhelming majority of American voters.

“So, this court is a difficult topic, especially as we launch this week into a new term of the court where we know we’re looking to see major rights eroded,” Vance conceded. “But the court, when it comes to procedural issues involving the former president, for instance, when it was asked to pass on cases after the election has been fairly solid. Nicolle, I would say the one place you can take heart is that the great thing about being a Supreme Court justice, or a federal judge for that matter, is you have life tenure. Even the president who appointed you can’t remove you from the bench.”

She noted that the justices are facing serious criticism over having their own political agenda and this is an opportunity where they could put the law and the country first over politics.

“The context is a criminal investigation with national security implications,” Vance continued. “And instead of letting that proceeding go forward, like it would if he was anyone else, the former president files the civil action and tries to get a handpicked judge to shut it down. That’s not a process that the Supreme Court is going to look on with any sort of happiness. It doesn’t do anything to improve the mood of the country as it considers whether or not it still has confidence in the courts. This is in many ways an opportunity for the Supreme Court to do the right thing and fix some of the damage it’s done, and I hope for all of our sakes they’ll take advantage of that opportunity.”