Trump asks Supreme Court to step into legal battle over Mar-a-Lago documents

WASHINGTON

Former US President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to intervene in the case over classified documents seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

Trump's lawyers filed an emergency request asking the top court to overturn a ruling by the 11th US Court of Appeals and to allow an independent arbiter, or special master, to review the roughly 100 classified documents that were taken in the Aug. 8 search.

"The unprecedented circumstances presented by this case—an investigation of the Forty-Fifth President of the United States by the administration of his political rival and successor—compelled the District Court to acknowledge the significant need for enhanced vigilance and to order the appointment of a Special Master to ensure fairness, transparency, and maintenance of the public trust," said the lawyers in the filing.

"That appointment order is simply not appealable on an interlocutory basis and was never before the Eleventh Circuit.

"Nonetheless, the Eleventh Circuit granted a stay of the Special Master Order, effectively compromising the integrity of the well-established policy against piecemeal appellate review and ignoring the District Court’s broad discretion without justification," they said.

"This unwarranted stay should be vacated as it impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the Special Master. Moreover, any limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of materials seized in the extraordinary raid of a President’s home erodes public confidence in our system of justice," they added.

Last month, a federal appeals court allowed the Department of Justice to resume its use of classified records as part of its ongoing criminal probe.