Supreme Court denies Trump's request in Mar-a-Lago documents case

The Supreme Court announced Thursday it would not hear an appeal from former President Donald Trump regarding the removal of documents from his Florida home.

In an unsigned order released midafternoon, the court said the application to stop the Justice Department from using the material claimed from Mar-a-Lago during an Aug. 8 raid was denied. There was no mention of any dissent from the nine justices.

Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ordered that the FBI could use the documents without a special review, ruling against Trump’s claim that the classified documents belonged to him and not the government. It also did not agree with the former president’s claim that he had declassified the documents upon leaving the White House. The three-judge panel wrote: “For our part, we cannot discern why [Trump] would have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings.”

That ruling froze parts of a controversial earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled on Sept. 5 that the documents could not be used for "investigative purposes" until they were reviewed by an outside legal expert known as a special master. Judge Raymond Dearie, who was appointed by Cannon to the role, is currently reviewing the 11,000 documents that were not marked as classified.

Trump’s lawyers filed the emergency request on Oct. 4, calling for the special master to have access to the more than 100 documents featuring classified labels. Trump’s team argued that “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.”

Earlier this week, the Justice Department filed a 32-page response to the Supreme Court urging it to deny Trump’s request for an appeal, stating that he had “no plausible claims” to the records. Trump’s defeat comes despite a 6-3 conservative majority on the court, including three justices appointed by him.