OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Left-leaning pundits and Democratic operatives are venting their frustration and anger following the latest legal move involving former President Donald Trump’s legal team and federal courts.
Earlier this month, the former president requested that the Supreme Court squash an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling overturning a lower court’s decision to allow a special master to review documents marked classified. At the time, Justice Clarence Thomas, who has jurisdiction over the 11th Circuit, set a deadline of Tuesday for the Department of Justice to respond.
At issue: The DOJ sought to exclude about 100 documents from being reviewed by the special master because they are allegedly classified, and Trump had no right to be in possession of them. And while it isn’t clear that the documents have not been declassified by the former president, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the department anyway.
According to Fox News, the Trump legal team is not trying to prevent the DOJ from seeing the documents. Rather, Trump is arguing that the special master should have access to them and that the 11th Circuit’s ruling was wrong on procedural grounds.
Trump’s legal team has argued that “the unprecedented circumstances presented by this case—an investigation of the Forty-Fifth President of the United States by the administration of his political rival and successor—compelled the District Court to acknowledge the significant need for enhanced vigilance and to order the appointment of a Special Master to ensure fairness, transparency, and maintenance of the public trust.”
“That appointment order is simply not appealable on an interlocutory basis and was never before the Eleventh Circuit. Nonetheless, the Eleventh Circuit granted a stay of the Special Master Order, effectively compromising the integrity of the well-established policy against piecemeal appellate review and ignoring the District Court’s broad discretion without justification,” the filing added.
Trump further argued that this “unwarranted stay should be vacated as it impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the Special Master.” And, “Moreover, 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,” the filing continued.
The fact that Thomas has gotten the case — again, he is responsible for hearing cases involving the 11th Circuit — has sent liberal blue checks on Twitter into a tailspin. “Clarence Thomas had the audacity to rule on ANOTHER matter involving Donald Trump without recusing himself. Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached and disbarred,” wailed Jon Cooper, a longtime Democratic operative who worked to elect Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Clarence Thomas had the audacity to rule on ANOTHER matter involving Donald Trump without recusing himself.
Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached and disbarred.
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) October 5, 2022
“The Justice Department has sent a warning shot to Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court to reject Donald Trump’s request that it intervene in the Mar-a-Lago case. Ginni Thomas should take note,” added Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko.
The Justice Department has sent a warning shot to Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court to reject Donald Trump’s request that it intervene in the Mar-a-Lago case. Ginni Thomas should take note.
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) October 12, 2022
Earlier, former federal judge Raymond Dearie, who was appointed special master by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, made a request that the judge in the case quickly dismissed. Dearie sought to have the former president’s attorneys declare whether all of the more than 11,000 documents were accurate, and he wanted them to do it in eight days. Not only would that be a monumental task, but the attorneys had not yet seen every document as some were marked classified, the Western Journal reported.
“There shall be no separate requirement on Plaintiff at this stage, prior to the review of any of the seized materials,” the judge said. “The Court’s Appointment Order did not contemplate that obligation.”
Even though there were over 11,000 documents, Dearie wanted Trump’s team to meet a Sept. 30 deadline to identify items in the inventory “that plaintiff asserts were not seized from the premises. This submission shall be plaintiff’s [Trump’s] final opportunity to raise any factual dispute as to the completeness and accuracy of the Detailed Property Inventory,” he wrote.
“Additionally, Plaintiff currently has no means of accessing the documents bearing classification markings, which would be necessary to complete any such certification by September 30, the currently proposed date of completion,” Trump’s attorneys argued in a court filing late last month.
