Former US President Donald Trump has suffered the next legal setback in a dispute over the evaluation of secret documents confiscated from him. The Supreme Court rejected an urgent request by the ex-president to have around 100 secret documents examined by a special examiner before they could be used by investigators.
In early August, the Federal Police FBI searched Trump’s villa in the US state of Florida. The FBI confiscated various classified documents, some with the highest level of secrecy. Among the thousands of documents, according to the FBI, were around 100 documents marked as secret. By keeping the documents in his private home after leaving office, Trump could have made himself liable to prosecution. The result was legal wrangling by the authorities.
In the meantime, Trump’s team was able to achieve success with the appointment of a neutral examiner for the documents. His job is, among other things, to filter out documents that fall under the attorney-client privilege. However, the Ministry of Justice was able to prevail on an important point before an appeals court, which exempted the around 100 documents marked as secret from the examination. So they could be used for the investigations against Trump.
Whereabouts of some documents unclear
The Ministry of Justice was concerned, among other things, because the search also found dozens of empty folders with a secret note – and it was unclear what documents were in them and where they are currently located.
Trump’s lawyers argued before the Supreme Court, among other things, that the 76-year-old had unlimited authority during his time as President to declassify documents. Therefore, markings alone cannot determine whether a document is still classified or whether Trump has released it. Therefore, the special investigator must be given access to intervene in cases of doubt.
Highly sensitive documents
Trump himself recently said in an interview that he was convinced that a president could lift the secrecy of documents with one word, “or only if you think about it”. Experts emphasized that there are fixed procedures for this. It is also disputed whether Trump, as ex-president, still has a right to the protection of his documents, which is usually reserved for the incumbent head of state. And at least some of the records appear to be so national security sensitive that it wouldn’t matter if they were classified as they generally would need to be kept under special protection.
The Supreme Court gave no explanation as to why it denied the motion or if all nine justices agreed. During Trump’s tenure, three Supreme Court justices were appointed – and conservative lawyers now have a clear majority of six to three votes in the US Supreme Court. Trump has previously expressed disappointment that the Supreme Court did not want to deal with his false claims of massive fraud in the 2020 presidential election he lost.
