Published April 4, 2024
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s latest threat to appeal over a jury instructions order issued by the judge overseeing the Trump classified documents case would almost ensure a trial does not take place before the election, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
In Judge Aileen Cannon’s order requiring the parties to file proposed jury instructions, she included two scenarios that seemed to agree with Trump’s argument that he has discretion under the Presidential Records Act (PRA) to designate documents in his possession as personal, and that those decisions cannot be reviewed.
Smith told Judge Aileen Cannon in a filing Wednesday that her order relied on a “fundamentally flawed legal premise,” saying jury instructions based on Trump’s theory would “distort the trial.”
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SOURCE: www.dailycaller.com
RELATED: Trump Wants ‘Lowlife’ Jack Smith ‘Sanctioned Or Censured’ For Criticizing Judge’s Order In Classified Docs Case
Former President Trump attacked Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith as a “lowlife” and said he should be punished, after he strongly rebuked an order from Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon that Smith said would give merit to Trump’s attempts to scrap his criminal charges for holding classified documents.
Published April 4, 2024
Trump said Smith should be “sanctioned or censured for the way he is attacking a highly respected Judge, Aileen Cannon,” he wrote on Truth Social Thursday, calling Smith “a lowlife who is nasty, rude, and condescending, and obviously trying to play the ref.’”
Trump was responding to Smith’s sharply worded response on Tuesday to Cannon’s request for prosecutors and Trump’s legal team to produce jury instructions under two competing interpretations of the Presidential Records Act, which Trump has used to defend himself in the case, essentially claiming that he designated the classified documents he allegedly brought with him to Mar-A-Lago as personal records.
The Presidential Records Act allows presidents to retain “highly personal information, such as diaries, journals, and medical records” after leaving office.
Cannon asked the parties to lay out one scenario in which a jury would be allowed to review the records and determine which ones were personal and which ones were subject to retention by the National Archives and Records Administration, and a second scenario that assumes Trump had the authority to make that determination himself.
Smith’s office wrote Tuesday the order was based on an “unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise” that would “distort the trial,” while calling on Cannon to “promptly” determine if her order equates to a “correct formulation of the law,” threatening to appeal if she rules against the DOJ, which could delay the trial past the November election.
The Presidential Records Act, Smith added, should have no bearing on the case, because the records Trump is accused of taking with him are safeguarded under the Espionage Act, which prohibits “unauthorized possession” of national defense information.
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SOURCE: www.forbes.com
RELATED: Donald Trump Blasts Jack Smith For ‘Attacking’ Aileen Cannon
Published April 4, 2024
Former President Donald Trump blasted Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday, calling him out for “attacking” Florida U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.
“Deranged ‘Special’ Counsel Jack Smith, who has a long record of failure as a prosecutor, including a unanimous decision against him in the U.S. Supreme Court, should be sanctioned or censured for the way he is attacking a highly respected Judge, Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over his FAKE Documents Hoax case in Florida,” the former president wrote in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, has faced mounting scrutiny over her handling of Trump’s classified documents case as critics have called for her to be removed. Federal prosecutors charged Trump with 31 counts for allegedly keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee for president, has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has repeatedly maintained his innocence in that case as well as other criminal and civil matters.
In a court filing on Tuesday, Smith said that Cannon‘s proposed jury instructions “rest on an unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise.” Smith continued, saying “the question of whether the PRA [Presidential Records Act] has an impact on the element of unauthorized possession under Section 793(e) does not turn on any evidentiary issue, and it cannot be deferred. It is purely a question of law that must be decided promptly.”
