DOJ Strongly Opposes Supreme Court Action on Classified Documents Seized From Trump

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The Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject former President Donald Trump’s request for a special master to review documents seized by the FBI from his Florida residence.

The DOJ filing comes in response to an emergency request filed by Trump’s lawyers on October 4th asking the Supreme Court to lift a lower court’s decision preventing the special master from reviewing the 100-plus documents marked as classified or top secret that were seized along with the other 11,000 records Trump wrongfully took from the White House.

The DOJ argued its case in the filing, ripping into Trump’s claims of potential injury from the documents remaining in federal custody:

Indeed, because applicant has no plausible claims of ownership of or privilege in the documents bearing classification markings … he will suffer no harm at all from a temporary stay of the special master’s review of those materials while the government’s appeal proceeds.

“And applicant further undermined any claim that he is suffering irreparable injury from the stay by opposing the government’s motion to expedite the underlying appeal and urging that oral argument be deferred until ‘January 2023 or later,’” added the filing, noting:

“Applicant’s failure to establish any risk of irreparable injury provides yet another independently sufficient reason to deny his request to disturb the modest partial stay entered by the court of appeals.”

CNN reported on Tuesday that the Supreme Court decision could come within days.