Donald Trump arrived at a Florida federal court on Thursday where a judge will hear arguments on whether to dismiss a criminal case accusing the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving the White House.
A motorcade carrying 2024 Republican presidential candidates arrived shortly before the hearing began, presided over by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, Trump’s nominee to the bench.
At issue is the Trump team’s interpretation of the Presidential Records Act, which they say gives him the power to designate the documents as personal and retain them after he becomes president.
By contrast, special counsel Jack Smith’s team said the documents Trump is accused of possessing are presidential records, not personal records, and that the statute does not apply to classified and top-secret documents such as those kept at his seaside lake Estate Documents Florida Estates.
Prosecutors wrote that the Presidential Records Act “does not exempt Trump from criminal law, nor give him the right to unilaterally declare highly confidential presidential records as personal records, nor does it protect him from criminal investigations — — not to mention allowing him to obstruct federal investigations with impunity,” in a court filing last week.
It’s unclear when Cannon will rule, but the outcome will determine whether the case proceeds or is dismissed before it reaches a jury, as Trump’s lawyers hope – a rare move by a judge .
Cannon is also expected to hear arguments Thursday on a separate but related motion from the Trump team that says the statute that makes up most of the criminal charges — which criminalizes knowingly withholding national defense information — cannot be applied before it is applied. The president was vague and unconstitutional. .
It’s not surprising that defense attorneys are seeking to dismiss the case under the Presidential Records Act, given how many times the legal team has invoked the statute since the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
The law, enacted in 1978, requires presidents to turn over their presidential records to the management of the U.S. government (specifically, the National Archives and Records Administration) when they leave office, although they can retain personal records, including purely private diaries and notes and unprepared for government affairs.
Trump’s lawyers said he designated as personal property the records he brought to Mar-a-Lago, which prosecutors say include top-secret information and documents related to the nuclear program and the military capabilities of U.S. and foreign adversaries.
Cannon has said in the past that she believes Trump’s status as a former president separates him from others who hold classified records.
In 2022, after Trump’s team sued the Justice Department to get his records back, Cannon appointed a special agent to conduct an independent review of documents obtained during the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid. The appointment was later overturned by a federal appeals court.
More recently, while Cannon ruled in favor of Smith’s team on procedural matters, he pointedly described the case as “the first criminal prosecution of a former president of the United States – who was once the special counsel for the U.S.” ‘s main security agency. Now seeking to conceal it from him (and his lawyers) – without accusations of transmitting or delivering defense information. ”
Trump faces 40 felony charges in Florida alleging that he knowingly withheld dozens of classified documents and resisted government requests to return them after he left the White House. Prosecutors have highlighted the scope of criminal conduct they hope to prove at trial in recent court filings, saying in one of the filings that “never in the history of the United States has a former official engaged in conduct so eerily similar to Trump’s” case. ”
For example, they allege that Trump deliberately withheld some of the nation’s most sensitive documents — returning only a fraction of them at the request of the National Archives — and then urged his lawyers to hide the records and lie to the FBI that he did not possess them longer. He is also accused of recruiting staff to delete surveillance footage showing boxes of documents being moved around the hotel.
The hearing was the second in Florida this month in the case, one of four indictments Trump faces this year as he seeks to regain the White House. Cannon heard arguments on March 1 about when to set a trial date, but has not yet made a ruling. Both sides have proposed starting the trial in the summer.
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