President Trump is asking the Supreme Court to intervene and halt a federal court order that he turn over thousands of emails and internal documents related to his decision last year to ban transgender people from military service.
The court published the appeal on its docket Monday and could decide to weigh in on whether the White House communications should remain confidential or be made available to transgender plaintiffs who are suing Trump and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in a Washington state district court.
The federal Karnoski v. Trump lawsuit has focused on Trump’s claim in July 2017 that he consulted with “my Generals and military experts” in a series of tweets announcing he would prohibit service by transgender people in any capacity.
Last month, the Washington district court sided with the plaintiffs, including active-duty troops and a prospective transgender recruit, and ordered the Trump administration to turn over emails and other internal correspondence that could shed light on what White House deliberations actually occurred over a new Pentagon transgender policy.
“That order requires the executive branch, including the president himself, to produce a detailed privilege log of thousands of documents withheld under the presidential communications privilege — and to do so in a manner that reveals information that is itself privileged,” according to the Supreme Court appeal filed by the Justice Department.
The administration is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s decision to make the documents available to the plaintiffs during pretrial discovery. The Karnoski case is not expected to go to trial until mid-2019.
Trump’s 2017 tweet calling for a ban on transgender service surprised many in the Pentagon. Top advisers in the White House, including Reince Priebus, had warned Trump that an all-out ban could spark lawsuits the morning the president sent out the tweets, according to Bob Woodward’s book Fear: Trump in the White House.
Mattis was traveling on the West Coast at the time and was also blindsided, according to the book. He had just delayed the start of recruiting for transgender service members for six months to study the issue.
