Court asked to reject Trump request

WASHINGTON — The United States Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject former president Donald Trump's bid to again empower an independent arbiter to vet classified records seized from his Florida home, as part of his legal battle against investigators probing his handling of sensitive government records.

Trump filed an emergency request on Oct 4 asking the justices to lift a federal appeals court's decision to prevent the arbiter, known as a special master, from vetting more than 100 documents marked as classified that were among the roughly 11,000 records seized by FBI agents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on Aug 8.

In a filing on Tuesday, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to reject Trump's request because he has not pointed to any "clear error" in the lower court's decision or shown how he is harmed by it.

Trump went to court on Aug 22 in a bid to restrict Justice Department access to the documents as it pursues a criminal investigation of him for retaining government records, some marked as highly classified including top secret, at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office in January 2021.

Trump asked a judge at the time to appoint a special master, as the judge later did, to vet the seized documents and review whether any could be deemed privileged and potentially withheld from investigators.

The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Sept 21 put on hold a decision by District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over Trump's lawsuit.

Cannon had temporarily barred the Justice Department from examining the seized documents until the special master she appointed, Judge Raymond Dearie, had identified any that could be considered privileged.

Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, barred the Justice Department on Sept 5 from reviewing all of the seized materials for its criminal investigation.

In Tuesday's filing, the Justice Department said Trump's request should be denied because he has not shown that the 11th Circuit erred in its conclusion that Cannon's order "was a serious and unwarranted intrusion on the executive branch's authority to control the use and distribution of extraordinarily sensitive government records".

The Justice Department has "attempted to criminalize a document management dispute and now vehemently objects to a transparent process that provides much-needed oversight", Trump's lawyers previously told the Supreme Court.

The department's investigation seeks to determine who accessed classified materials, whether they were compromised and if any remain unaccounted for. At issue in the 11th Circuit's ruling were documents bearing classified markings of confidential, secret or top secret.

The department is also examining whether Trump tried to obstruct the criminal investigation. Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the investigation politically motivated.

On Sept 15, Cannon rejected the department's request that she partially lift her order as related to the classified materials because it impeded the government's effort to mitigate potential national security risks from possible unauthorized disclosure.

The document investigation is one of several legal woes Trump is facing as he considers whether to run again for president in 2024.

In an interview on Fox News last month, Trump asserted that he had the power to declassify documents "even by thinking about it".

Agencies - Xinhua