Former President Donald Trump waves to supporters as he leaves federal court, on March 14, 2024, in Fort Pierce, Fla. Wilfredo Lee—AP
Published March 15, 2024
Trump attended Thursday’s arguments, listening intently with his hands sometimes clasped in front of him on the defense table as his attorneys pressed the judge to throw out the case.
A federal judge on Thursday rejected one bid by Donald Trump to throw out out his classified documents criminal case, and appeared skeptical during hours of arguments of a separate effort to scuttle the prosecution ahead of trial.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a two-page order saying that though the Trump team had raised “various arguments warranting serious consideration,” a dismissal of charges was not merited. The case involves boxes of records, some highly classified, that Trump took to his Mar-a-Lago estate when he left the White House.
Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by the former president, had made clear during more than three-and-a-half hours of arguments that she was reluctant to dismiss one of the four criminal cases against the 2024 presumptive Republican presidential nominee. She said at one point that a dismissal of the indictment would be “difficult to see” and that it would be “quite an extraordinary” step to strike down an Espionage Act statute that underpins the bulk of the felony counts against Trump but that his lawyers contend is unconstitutionally vague.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.fortune.com
RELATED: Trump Florida Judge Cannon denies Trump dismissal on ‘unconstitutional vagueness’
Published March 14, 2024
Judge Cannon stated, “I don’t see how it leads to a dismissal… Maybe a defense at trial…”
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday dismissed former President Trump’s motion to dismiss charges of retaining classified documents on the grounds of “unconstitutional vagueness.”
This is only one of two motions from Trump’s legal team. The judge has not ruled on the other motion to dismiss based on the Presidential Records Act (PRA).
Defense attorney Todd Blanche argued earlier that the Trump position is that the PRA gives the president the authority to retain documents he sees fit, and essentially take them home or out of the White House, and if that’s accurate, that alone is “fatal” to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment.
“Presidents since George Washington have taken material out of the White House,” said Blanche, adding that the PRA was passed in the late ’70s and nothing in the statute says anything about documents with markings or anything that gives the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) the ability to challenge a president’s decision about which documents are personal versus presidential.
Team Trump also points out often that then-President Trump caused these boxes to be moved while he was still president and that this is the first time NARA has challenged a decision made by a president about which documents are personal versus presidential. They claim NARA only took this action because the president in question was Donald Trump.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.foxnews.com
RELATED: Judge rejects Trump motion to dismiss classified documents case
Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty in all of the criminal cases against him
Published March 15, 2024
A Florida judge has rejected a motion from former US President Donald Trump to dismiss a classified documents case against him.
His attorneys argued the criminal charges under the Espionage Act were unclear.
But Judge Aileen Cannon said ruling in favour of Mr Trump would have been an “extraordinary step”.
She will rule later on another Trump motion arguing that ex-presidents are shielded from record-keeping rules.
Mr Trump, who has already pleaded not guilty to 40 criminal charges in the matter, attended Thursday’s hearing.
On his social media platform, Truth Social, he described the case as a witch hunt while noting that “big crowds” had shown up outside the court in Fort Pierce.
In a separate case on Thursday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg asked for a 30-day delay in the former president’s trial in New York on charges of business fraud over a hush money payment to an adult film star.
The New York trial was due to begin on 25 March, but Mr Bragg said his office needed time to examine 31,000 pages of evidence that it recently received from federal prosecutors.
In the Florida case, prosecutors allege Mr Trump retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
They say he obstructed the justice department’s efforts to retrieve the files and turn them over to the National Archives.
