Trump loses attempt to dismiss classified documents case

Former president had hoped to use Presidential Records Act to throw out charges after an FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home.

Donald Trump has claimed that the case against him is a ‘witch hunt’ by his opponents. Picture: AFP

The federal judge overseeing Don­ald Trump’s classified documents case has dismissed his claim that as president he was allowed to take government records after he left office.

Mr Trump’s legal team had sought to have the case thrown out, arguing that under the Presidential Records Act he was permitted to classify records from his time in office as personal documents and take them with him when he left the White House.

Ruling in Florida on Thursday, however, federal District Court judge Aileen Cannon rejected that claim, saying the Presidential Records Act “does not provide a pre-trial basis to dismiss” the 40 felony charges against the former president.

Federal prosecutors, led by special counsel Jack Smith, had strenuously challenged the argument by Mr Trump’s team. The government insisted that the Presidential Records Act had no relevance in case concerning classified documents and that there was no legal basis for Mr Trump to hold on to top-secret material when he left office.

Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include allegations that he violated the Espionage Act, after boxes of classified documents taken from the White House were found stashed around his Florida home of Mar-a-Lago during a search by the FBI in 2022. In campaign speeches and interviews, the presumptive Republican nominee for president has cited the records act as proof that the case is a “witch hunt” orchestrated by his political enemies to derail his bid for the White House.

Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Mr Trump in 2020, also defended her order to both sides in March which appeared to be entertaining the former president’s defence under the PRA.

The order brought a sharp rebuke from Mr Smith’s legal team, which said in a court filing this week that the premise of Judge Cannon’s order was “wrong” and “fundamentally flawed”.

Writing on Thursday, Judge Cannon said the order should not be interpreted as “anything other than what it was: a genuine ­attempt, in the context of the upcoming trial, to better understand the parties’ competing positions and the questions to be submitted to the jury in this complex case.”

Mr Trump faces four criminal indictments as he campaigns to regain the White House in a rematch with Joe Biden at November’s presidential election.

His trial in the case related to hush money payments to conceal an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels is set to open in New York on April 15.

Judge Cannon has yet to rule on other efforts by Mr Trump’s team to have the documents case dismissed. His claim that he enjoys total immunity from prosecution for actions that he took as president rests with the US Supreme Court, which will hear arguments later this month and is expected to issue a ruling by June.

Prosecutors have asked Judge Cannon to delay Mr Trump’s trial in the documents case until July 8, while they await the Supreme Court’s decision.

The former president’s lawyers have exploited every legal avenue to delay the trial until after the presidential election in the expectation he could order the Justice Department to dismiss if he takes back the White House.

Judge Cannon has yet to name a date and the slow pace of her ­decision-making has made it increasingly unlikely that the case will go to trial before the election in November.

While Mr Trump has railed at the judges in the other cases against him, the former president has conspicuously defended Judge Cannon, calling her “highly respected” in a social media post this week.

In Georgia, where Mr Trump and 14 co-defendants face ­charges over their attempt to overturn the 2020 election result, a judge on Thursday also dismissed an attempt to throw out the case.

Judge Scott F. McAfee denied the defendants’ claims that some of the charges against them were based on political speech, which was protected under the First Amendment.

“Free speech – including political speech – is not without restriction,” Judge McAfee ruled.

“Even core political speech addressing matters of public concern is not impenetrable from prosecution if allegedly used to further criminal activity.”

Mr Trump and his co-defendants in the Georgia case, including members of his inner circle, were charged last year with felonies that included racketeering.

The former president was accused of overseeing a “criminal enterprise” to reverse his defeat in Georgia, the battleground state that Mr Trump lost to Mr Biden by fewer than 12,000 votes.

THE TIMES