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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
As I am certain you’ve heard by now, last night Donald Trump filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court asking the high court to overrule part of the Eleventh Circuit’s order in the Mar-A-Lago warrant case. Specifically, the brief makes a pendent appellate jurisdiction argument that the appellate court can’t review the particulars of what is before Special Master Raymond Dearie.
In the brief, Trump attorney Chris Kise makes a very limited argument, astutely characterized by Steve Vladeck as something a good attorney does in order to appease an awful client, “The jurisdictional argument is narrow, technical, and non-frivolous. It’s a way of filing *something* in the Supreme Court without going all the way to crazytown and/or acting unethically.”
And if you’ve spent any amount of the last 24 hours anxious about the filing, I suggest you read Vladeck’s entire Twitter thread as he details why the argument isn’t likely to be a winner, and even if it is, it’s not a big deal. Then you can turn your anxiety back to the gas crisis OPEC has artificially created to tank the midterm elections. Wheeee — what a time to be ALIVE!
But that doesn’t mean we should just ignore the brief. As Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out on his MSNBC show last night, there’s something interesting on page 30 of the SCOTUS application:
“In describing Donald Trump’s relationship to these documents, after saying in their Supreme Court appeal tonight, once again, that this case is, ‘essentially a document storage dispute,’ the Trump lawyers, on page 30, went on to say ‘the Government has sought to criminalize President Trump’s possession and management of his own personal and presidential records.’”
And, possessing the classified documents is a big no-no… which is why filings have previously avoided that particular turn of phrase.
Check out O’Donnell’s take below.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
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