FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge will hear arguments Thursday on whether to dismiss classified documents prosecution of donald trumpwith his lawyers arguing that the former president had the right to keep the sensitive records with him when he left the White House and headed to Florida.
The dispute centers on the Trump team’s interpretation of the Presidential Records Act, which they say has given him the power to mark documents as private and keep them after his presidency.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team, by contrast, says the files Trump is accused of are presidential records, not personal, and that the law does not apply to classified and top secret documents such as those kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The Presidential Records Act “does not exempt Trump from criminal law, authorize him to unilaterally declare top-secret presidential records private, or protect him from criminal investigations — let alone allow him to obstruct a federal investigation with impunity,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing. case last week.
It was not clear when U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon could rule, but the outcome will determine whether the case moves forward or, as Trump’s lawyers hope, is dismissed before it ever goes to a jury — a rare action a judge has to take.
Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, is also expected to hear arguments Thursday on a separate but related proposal by Trump’s team that says the statute that forms the bulk of criminal charges — which makes it a crime to intentionally retain of national defense information—is unconstitutionally vague as it applies to a former president.
It’s not surprising that defense attorneys are seeking to dismiss the case based on the Presidential Records Act, given that the legal team has repeatedly invoked the statute after the August 2022 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
The law, passed in 1978, requires presidents upon leaving office to turn over their presidential archives to the US government for management — specifically the National Archives and Records Administration — although they are allowed to retain personal records, including diaries and notes that are purely personal and not prepared for government business.
Trump’s lawyers said he had classified as personal property the records he took with him to Mar-a-Lago, which prosecutors said included highly classified information and documents related to the nuclear programs and military capabilities of the United States and foreign adversaries.
Cannon has suggested in the past that she sees Trump’s status as a former president as something that sets him apart from others who have had classified records.
After Trump’s team sued the Justice Department in 2022 to get the records back, Cannon appointed special master to conduct an independent review of the documents seized during the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. This appointment was later overturned by a federal appeals court.
More recently, even as he ruled in favor of Smith’s team on a procedural issue, Cannon bluntly described the case as “the first-ever prosecution of a former president of the United States — once the primary authority for classifying many of the special counsel’s documents is now trying to withhold information from him (and his approved attorney) – in the event of no charges of passing or supplying national defense information.
Trump faces a 40-count indictment in Florida that accuses him of willfully withholding dozens of classified documents and refusing government requests to return them after he left the White House. Prosecutors in recent court documents underscored the scope of the criminal conduct they say they expect to prove at trial, saying in one that “there has never been a case in American history where a former employee engaged in conduct remotely similar to this of Trump. “
They allege, for example, that Trump deliberately withheld some of the nation’s most sensitive documents — returning only some of them when requested by the National Archives — and then had his lawyer hide records and lie to the FBI, saying no more he owned them. He is also accused of hiring employees to delete surveillance footage that showed boxes of documents being moved around the property.
The hearing is on second this month in the Florida case, one of four charges Trump faces as he tries to win back the White House this year. Cannon heard arguments on March 1 when to set a trial date, but did not immediately rule. Both sides have proposed summer dates for the trial to begin.
