A judge on Thursday rejected former President Donald Trump’s bid to dismiss the case alleging mismanagement. confidential documentsrejecting his argument, the documents were deemed private under the Presidential Records Act.
The charges against Trump “make no reference to the Presidential Registration Act and do not rely on that statute to state a crime,” U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon wrote.
“For these reasons, accepting the allegations in the Superseding Indictment as true, the Presidential Records Act does not provide a pretrial basis,” the judge said, raising the possibility that the defense argument could be used later.
Cannon had asked both sides to address the argument that national security documents could be considered private in the jury’s proposed instructions.fundamentally flawed.” The judge said in his ruling Thursday that Smith’s request to settle the matter now was “unprecedented and unfair.”
Cannon argued that his order requesting a preliminary draft instruction was nothing more than a “genuine attempt to better understand the competing positions of the parties in the context of the upcoming trial and the questions that will be presented to the jury in this complex case.”
The Presidential Records Act requires the return of presidential records after a president’s term ends, but says they can keep their personal records, which are described as containing “highly personal information such as diaries, journals and medical records.”
In a filing on Tuesday, Smith’s office said Cannon’s proposed instruction on Trump’s broader interpretation of the law would have essentially led the jury to accept Trump’s defense and was bogus.
“Trump’s entire effort to rely on the PRA has no basis in fact,” prosecutors said. “This is post hoc reasoning, concocted more than a year after he left the White House, and his invocation of the PRA in this Court is not based on his decision to designate as private any records he actually took during his presidency. He is charged.”
Cannon’s request last month for jury instructions incorporating Trump’s PRA came as a surprise. It came after a hearing in which the judge appeared very skeptical defense, and this came because there was no firm court date for the case to begin.
The trial was scheduled to begin on May 20, but the judge repeatedly said that date would be pushed back and asked both sides to file a new case. proposed dates. Both sides did so in late February, but Cannon has yet to decide.
Trump facing numerous charges in classified documents cases, including willful withholding of national defense information, false statements and representations, conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealment of a document or record, and corrupt concealment of a document.
The former president pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Zoe Richards, Megan Lebowitz and Summer concept contributed.