Trump loses bids to dismiss classified docs, Georgia election cases on the same day – NBC Chicago

• Donald Trump, in consecutive court rulings, has lost separate attempts to dismiss indictments against him in two of his four active criminal cases.
• In Florida federal court, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected Trump’s bid to drop charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
• The ruling came two hours after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee denied Trump’s request to dismiss his Georgia election interference case on the grounds that it violated his liberty rights of expression.
• Cannon’s decision also repelled special counsel Jack Smith, who criticized the judge earlier this week over his guidelines for proposed jury instructions.

Donald Trump lost two separate attempts Thursday afternoon to drop criminal charges against him in his cases in Florida and Georgia.

In federal court in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected Trump’s request to drop charges against him related to his alleged mishandling of hundreds of classified documents after he left the White House.

In a brief order, Cannon wrote that Trump’s argument, which relied on his interpretation of the Presidential Records Act, provided an insufficient basis for dismissal.

The ruling came about two hours after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee denied Trump’s attempt to dismiss his Georgia election interference case on the grounds that it violated his liberty rights of expression.

Both losses came a day after New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan rejected a request from Trump to delay his upcoming criminal trial under wraps.

This case is expected to begin jury selection in less than two weeks. This is the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has aggressively sought to dismiss all of his criminal trials, or at least push them past the November election. In the financial silence case alone, he tried eight times to delay the trial.

Thursday’s developments, however, do not constitute a complete victory for Trump’s prosecutors.

Cannon’s decision also repelled special counsel Jack Smith, who criticized the judge’s guidelines earlier this week regarding proposed jury instructions.

Smith said Cannon’s guidelines, which asked the parties to draft jury instructions on how to interpret the Presidential Records Act, were based on a false legal premise that falsely gave credence to Trump’s claims.

Smith asked Cannon to decide quickly whether she would adopt these jury instructions, so that he would have time to appeal her decision.

Cannon on Thursday called the request “unprecedented and unfair.”

The judge wrote that her order regarding jury instructions “should not be misconstrued” as the final word on a critical element of the case.

Rather, she wrote, it was “a genuine attempt, in the context of the upcoming trial, to better understand the competing positions of the parties” in a complex case.

But Cannon added that Smith is nevertheless free to use “any appellate options he deems appropriate to invoke, to the extent permitted by law.”

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