Judge rejects Trump request to dismiss classified documents prosecution – Orange County Register

By ÉRIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON — A federal judge refused Thursday to throw out classified documents filed against Donald Trump, rejecting defense arguments that a decades-old law allowed the former president to keep sensitive documents after leaving office.

Trump’s lawyers had cited a 1978 law known as the Presidential Records Act to demand that the case, one of four cases against the presumptive Republican nominee, be dismissed before trial. This law requires presidents, when they leave office, to turn over presidential files to the federal government, but allows them to retain purely personal documents. Trump’s lawyers said he designated the documents as personal, making them his property, and that decision could not be questioned in court.

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Prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team countered that the law had no relevance in a case involving the mishandling of classified documents and said the files Trump allegedly kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, were unmistakably presidential files. , and not personal, and therefore had to be returned to the government when Trump left the White House.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who heard arguments on the dispute last month, allowed the case to proceed in a three-page order that rejected the Trump team’s claims. She wrote that the indictment makes “no reference to the Presidential Records Act” nor does it “rely on that law to find any violation.” The law, she said, “does not provide a pretrial basis for dismissing” the case.

This is the second time in three weeks that Cannon has rebuffed defense efforts to derail the case. It represents a modest victory for Smith’s team, which has tried to move the prosecution to trial this year but has also expressed growing frustration, notably earlier this week, with the oversight of the case. by Cannon.

Other motions by Trump to dismiss the indictment remain unresolved by the judge, the trial date is moving and other legal disputes have slowed progress in a case that prosecutors say contains voluminous evidence of the former president’s guilt.

In Thursday’s ruling, Cannon also defended an order last month that asked lawyers for both sides to formulate possible jury instructions and respond to two different scenarios in which she appeared to continue entertaining Trump’s argument regarding presidential files.

The order puzzled legal experts and drew sharp rebukes from Smith’s team, with prosecutors filing a brief this week calling the premises laid out by the judge “fundamentally flawed” and warning that they were ready to appeal if she pursued the jury instructions they considered. fake.

“The Court’s order seeking preliminary instructions on certain counts should not be misconstrued as declaring a definitive definition on any essential element or asserting any defense in this case,” Cannon wrote. “Nor should it be construed as anything other than what it was: a genuine attempt, in the context of the upcoming trial, to better understand the competing positions of the parties and the issues to be presented to the jury in this case first impression complex. .”

Nonetheless, she added, if prosecutors requested that jury instructions be finalized before trial and the presentation of evidence, “the Court denies that request as unprecedented and unfair.”

In addition to upholding the indictment on Thursday, she also denied a separate motion to dismiss last month, which claimed the Espionage Act underlying the bulk of the charges was unconstitutionally vague and should be canceled.

Cannon has yet to rule on other efforts by Trump to dismiss the case, including arguments that presidential immunity protects him from prosecution and that he has been the subject of “selective and vindictive prosecutions.” “.

Trump faces dozens of counts related to keeping classified documents, according to an indictment alleging he inappropriately shared a Pentagon “attack plan” and a classified map linked to a military operation. Authorities say the files were stored in dozens of randomly stored boxes at Mar-a-Lago, which were searched by the FBI in August 2022 as part of an escalation of the investigation.

The case was originally scheduled to go to trial on May 20, but Cannon heard arguments last month on a new date without immediately setting one. Both sides have said they could be ready to stand trial this summer, although defense attorneys have also said Trump should not be forced to stand trial while the election is underway.

Smith’s team has separately accused Trump of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, a case delayed by a Supreme Court review of his arguments that he is immune from federal prosecution. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, have also accused Trump of trying to overturn the election in that state, although it remains unclear when that case will go to trial.