On Friday, special counsel Jack Smith’s legal team denied former President Donald Trump’s rights allegations of political bias In a secret documents case against him in Florida.
The 67 page application it came in response to an effort by Trump’s lawyers to compel prosecutors to turn over some documents they say will serve as evidence of bias and wrongdoing, including records taken from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence. Smith’s team urged the court to reject Trump’s request entirely.
“Discovery requests must be based on case-specific requests for items material to the preparation of the defense,” prosecutors wrote. “Instead of meeting those standards,” they added, Trump’s team sought records that were “speculative, unsupported, and based on spurious theories of political bias and hostility.”
Prosecutors argued that Trump’s latest lawsuit seeks to “cast doubt on the responsible actions of government officials diligently doing their jobs.”
“Requests to offices empowered to review security concerns arising from the revelation that Trump had classified records at Mar-a-Lago were again entirely appropriate and in no way indicative of political bias,” they wrote.
Prosecutors also disputed the timeline of events leading up to the Trump team’s search for Mar-a-Lago. They defended the National Archives and Records Administration’s formal appeal to the Department of Justice February 2022 It came after “months of efforts” to get government documents from Trump after he left office, they said.
A spokesman and Trump’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday night.
Friday’s filing comes after Trump’s lawyers indicated in a giving Last month, they will allege that prosecutors conducted a “politically motivated and biased” investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents to damage his 2024 bid.
Trump’s lawyers emphasized His victory in the Iowa caucuses and accused prosecutors of ignoring discovery obligations and Justice Department policies on behalf of the Biden administration to slow Trump’s presidential campaign.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges related to a plan to withhold national defense information and delete security video related to classified documents discovered at his Mar-a-Lago estate more than a year after he left office. Mar-a-Lago estate.
Co-defendants Walt Nauta, the chief aide, and Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance supervisor at Mar-a-Lago, have pleaded not guilty to charges that they also participated in the attempt to delete the security video.
Currently, the case is scheduled to be brought to court in May. It was originally expected to begin after Trump’s federal election tampering trial in Washington, but the judge overseeing the case postponed He wrote on Friday that the trial will no longer start on March 4. The appeals court has yet to consider Trump’s argument that the case should be dismissed on presidential immunity grounds.
A delay in Washington means it probably will Manhattan District Attorney’s case, which will start on March 25, will be the next trial of the former president. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to adult film star Stormi Daniels shortly before the end of his 2016 presidential campaign. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.