Attorneys for Donald Trump and the prosecution engaged in yet another heated argument on Thursday in a federal court in Florida over his plans to drop the allegations that the former president handled secret documents improperly after leaving the White House.
Attending the hearing, Trump maintains his immunity from prosecution, arguing that he changed the classified documents from classified to personal records before leaving the White House to retain them, and that portions of the Espionage Act that forbid the keeping of national defense records are too ambiguous to enforce.
The Special Counsel’s Office’s “cobbled-together attempt fails as applied to President Trump,” attorneys Todd Blanche and Christopher Kise stated in a brief.
However, on Thursday night, Trump appointee U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon rejected the presidential candidate’s filings challenging the “vagueness” of the Espionage Act, giving the 2024 Republican nominee enough opportunity to rebut the arguments at a later time. She took some time to consider his Presidential Records Act claims.
Trump is uninformed, according to Jack Smith’s team, the special counsel for the Justice Department.
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Prosecutors stated that Trump’s claims are based on three basic misconceptions, all of which support his assertion that, as a former president, he is exempt from the laws and accountability standards that apply to other citizens.
A new trial date must also be scheduled by Cannon. Due to disagreements in the case, the court has stated that the trial will likely take place later than the prosecution’s suggested July 8 trial date of May 20. Trump’s attorneys recommended that the trial begin on August 12 but persuaded her to push it back until after the election in November.
In the case involving the sensitive documents, what accusations does Trump face?
At Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Florida, Trump is accused of 40 counts of hoarding national security documents and then plotting with two of his staff members, property manager Carlos De Oliveira and personal valet Walt Nauta, to conceal them from federal investigators. All three have entered not guilty pleas.
Over 300 classified documents were found more than a year after Trump departed the White House; the majority were found in response to an FBI search in August 2022 or under subpoena in June 2022.
“The classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack,” the indictment stated. “The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.”
In addition to being accused with conspiring to obstruct justice, withholding a document, corruptly concealing a document, and making false statements, Trump is now facing 32 counts of deliberate retention of national security information.
Trump claims he is exempt and that he has categorized some documents as “personal.”
Trump made a number of justifications for Cannon to drop the accusations. First, Trump argues that he is not prosecutable since the choices to move the documents were made during his presidency.
On April 25, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over Trump’s immunity in his other ongoing criminal lawsuit, which involves allegations that he attempted to rig the 2020 election. Trump is not immune from federal prosecution, according to earlier rulings by a federal judge and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In addition, Trump has maintained that he kept the hundreds of documents with classified markings after leaving the White House by designating them as personal papers. Furthermore, he argues that any disagreements over records should be resolved civilly rather than criminally in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.
Additionally, Trump claims that the Espionage Act’s provision that is being used against him for keeping secret documents is unconstitutionally ambiguous.
Trump’s attorneys stated in a brief that “as the Court already observed, President Trump was ‘once the country’s chief classification authority'” and that his “retention of the documents was not ‘unauthorized'” because “he designated them as personal records.”
Trump’s “alchemy” of converting secret materials into personal records, according to the prosecution, is “false.”
Each time Trump demanded that the case be dismissed, the prosecutors objected.
Prosecutors contended that the country’s military secrets and national security are of utmost importance, and that the Espionage Act’s prohibitions are unambiguous.
Prosecutors stated in a document that Trump’s claim over vagueness is baseless. “It is clear what is prohibited by the statute.”
Additionally, the documents are “indisputably presidential,” according to the prosecutors, not “personal,” as Trump has claimed. Trump’s claim that documents are “transformed into ‘personal’ records by the alchemy of removing them from the White House is false,” according to the prosecution.
Attorneys for the prosecution stated in a court document that the Presidential Records Act “does not exempt Trump from the criminal law, entitle him to unilaterally declare highly classified presidential records to be personal records, or shield him from criminal investigations – let alone allow him to obstruct a federal investigation with impunity.”
Conclusion
“The classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack,” the indictment stated. “The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.”
A new trial date must also be scheduled by Cannon. Due to disagreements in the case, the court has stated that the trial will likely take place later than the prosecution’s suggested July 8 trial date of May 20. Trump’s attorneys recommended that the trial begin on August 12 but persuaded her to push it back until after the election in November.
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