Former President Donald Trump's attorneys on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case involving classified documents seized on Aug. 8 by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
At Trump's request, Judge Raymond Dearie was appointed as special master in September. In their Tuesday application to the Supreme Court, Trump's lawyers asked that a lower court ruling preventing Dearie from reviewing about 100 documents marked classified be overturned. In that ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit agreed with the Department of Justice, which argued that there wasn't a legal basis for the special master to conduct his own review of the material.
In their application to the Supreme Court, Trump's attorneys said the special master must have an independent review to ensure a "transparent process that provides much-needed oversight."
The application was submitted to Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees emergency matters from Florida, and he can either refer the appeal to the rest of the court or act on his own. Earlier this year, Thomas was the only justice to vote against allowing the release of presidential documents to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. His wife, Ginni Thomas, is a conservative activist who has falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen and encouraged Republican lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin to submit their own slate of electors who would support Trump.