Judge Cannon rejects a bid by Trump to dismiss criminal charges in classified documents case
CNN
A federal judge will not dismiss the classified documents charges former President Donald Trump based on his theory that he had the authority to take classified or sensitive documents with him after he left the White House.
A federal judge will not grant a request to dismiss the charges in the classified documents case put forward by former President Donald Trump, who argued that he had the authority to take classified or sensitive documents with him after he left the White House. The short order from US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday leaves open the possibility that Trump could still use the argument that he was authorized to keep the documents under the Presidential Records Act to defend himself at trial or could bring it up in other pre-trial proceedings. Cannon didn’t detail her views on the claims Trump is making about the PRA but said Trump’s attorneys did not meet the legal standard to dismiss charges. She wrote that prosecutors “make no reference to the Presidential Records Act” in the indictment against Trump and did not “rely” on the statute to bring charges. The judge also pushed back against special counsel Jack Smith’s request that she make a final ruling on whether the theory can be used at trial, so that prosecutors could appeal to the 11th Circuit. She said that “demand” was “unprecedented and unjust.” Smith made the request when Cannon ordered both sides to submit hypothetical jury instructions that would take into account Trump’s claims of sweeping record-retention authority. Cannon defended that exercise in Thursday’s order, saying it should not “be interpreted as anything other than what it was: a genuine attempt, in the context of the upcoming trial, to better understand the parties’ competing positions and the questions to be submitted to the jury in this complex case of first impression.”
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