In a desperate legal move, former President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to intervene on his behalf in the case of the FBI’s investigation into the classified documents he took to his personal residence in Mar-a-Lago.
This “emergency request” by the former president occurs after an appeals court confirmed to the Department of Justice that it can continue its criminal investigation into the hundreds of documents that the Republican took without authorization.
Trump’s request becomes relevant, since he appointed three of the current judges, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who tipped the balance towards the conservative wing of the High Court.
In late September, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided in favor of the Department of Justice to continue with the analysis of documents that the FBI obtained from Mar-a-Lago, Florida on August 8.
The “special teacher” to review the documents had certain complications, but he will be able to analyze documents that the former president can claim as his own and “confidential”, so that they cannot be used in the investigation against him.
Trump has defended that he was able to “declassify” several documents when he was president, but national security experts indicate that this is not that simple.
The panel of judges of the court of appeals found some contradiction in Trump’s arguments on the “classification” of the files, although his decision in favor of the federal investigation is based on the content in yes.
The former president has publicly defended the power of a president to declassify a document.
“You are the president of the United States, you can declassify… even thinking about it”, he stated in an interview on Fox News.
In addition to the federal investigation, the Director of Intelligence, Avril Haines, is leading efforts in the evaluation of the damage to the national security system after Trump’s decision to take the files.
A first review of the papers found files that should have been protected, such as “secret”, “confidential” or “top secret”.
“A preliminary classification of the documents with classification marks revealed the following approximate numbers: 184 unique documents with classification marks, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET and documents marked as TOP SECRET”, revealed the Department of Justice.