A judge rejected former President Donald Trump's contention that confidential materials were personal under the Presidential Records Act on Thursday, denying his effort to dismiss a case alleging he mismanaged them.
The allegations against Trump "make no reference to the Presidential Records Act, nor do they rely on that statute for purposes of stating an offense," noted U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.
The judge said, "For these reasons, accepting the allegations of the Superseding Indictment as true, the Presidential Records Act does not provide a pre-trial basis to dismiss," leaving the defense case open.
Special counsel Jack Smith's office called Cannon's request to address the concept that national security documents may be considered personal in jury instructions "fundamentally flawed." Thursday's verdict said Smith's request to decide now is "unprecedented and unjust."
Cannon said her order for preliminary draft instructions was "a genuine attempt, in the context of the upcoming trial, to better understand the parties’ competing positions and the jury questions in this complex case."
The Presidential Records Act compels presidents to relinquish their records after their term, although they can keep their personal records, which include “highly personal information, such as diaries, journals, and medical records.”
California congressional primary tie suggests November three-way race “Trump’s entire effort to rely on the PRA is not based on any facts,” prosecutors argued. It is a post-hoc explanation that was devised more than a year after he left the White House, and his invocation in this Court of the PRA is not based on any choice he made during his presidency to identify any of the charged data as personal.”
Despite the trial's scheduled start date of May 20, the judge has repeatedly urged both sides to submit fresh dates. The parties did so in late February, but Cannon has not ruled.
Trump is charged with deliberate retention of national defense information, false statements and representations, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, and corruptly concealing a document in the classified papers case.
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