Special Counsel Jack Smith Attacks Judge in Trump Documents CaseKristina Wong 3 Apr 2024
Special Counsel Jack Smith attacked Judge Aileen Cannon in a filing submitted late Tuesday in the Justice Department’s case against former President Donald Trump alleging that he mishandled classified material after leaving office.
Smith’s team accused Cannon of a “fundamentally flawed” understanding of the case, after she requested draft language from both sides on potential jury instructions that they argue embrace Trump’s claims that he had broad authority to take classified government documents. Smith’s team also threatened to seek an appeal court review.
Cannon asked each side for instructions for two scenarios: One in which they would tell jurors to assess whether the records fell into the categories of “personal” or “presidential,” and another that assumes Trump had complete authority to take records he wanted from the White House.
“Both scenarios rest on an unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise — namely, that the Presidential Records Act and in particular its distinction between ‘personal’ and ‘Presidential’ records, determines whether a former President is ‘authorized,’ under the Espionage Act, to possess highly classified documents and store them in an unsecure facility,” Smith’s team wrote in the filing.
Trump’s defense team argues that the former president had broad authority to characterize any record from his time as president as personal and that the case should be dismissed. Smith’s team called that argument “pure fiction.”
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/04/03/special-counsel-jack-smith-attacks-judge-in-trump-documents-case-in-new-filing/
