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he Supreme Court handed former President Donald Trump a loss Thursday in his dispute with the Justice Department over documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago residence, rejecting his request that a special master be allowed to review classified papers.
The justices denied Trump’s relatively narrow emergency request in a brief unsigned order. There were no noted dissents.
The decision does not affect the Justice Department’s access to the same documents as part of a criminal investigation. The more than 100 documents marked as classified are just a small portion of the 11,000 records seized by federal agents in August amid concerns that Trump had unlawfully retained official White House records after leaving office.
The high court left in place part of a Sept. 21 decision by the 11th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals that barred the special master, federal Judge Raymond Dearie, from reviewing the documents. Trump had not contested the separate part of that ruling allowing the Justice Department to use the documents.
The appeals court said certain documents are deemed classified because they contain information that could harm the national security, and for that reason people may have access to them only if they need to know that information.
