Washington — The federal judge overseeing special counsel Jack Smith secret documents case against Donald Trump has once again rejected requests from the former president’s legal team to drop charges against him, according to an order filed Monday evening.
Judge Aileen Cannon denied numerous claims from Trump’s lawyers and his co-defendants, arguing that the 2023 indictment was technically flawed, but she criticized prosecutors’ description of one incident as unnecessary to the charges and agreed to cut a single paragraph to expunge from the charging document because she said so: falsely stated allegations of unfounded violations.”
Smith charged Trump with 40 counts, including unlawful retention of national defense information, after investigators recovered hundreds of classified documents from his time in the White House at his Florida estate. The former president and his co-defendants – assistant Walta Nauta and former Mar-a-Lago employee Carlos de Oliveira – are also accused of being involved in an alleged scheme to obstruct the federal investigation.
All three have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
Smith’s office declined to comment on the recent ruling. Trump’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Trump, Nauta and de Oliveira made numerous arguments to the court in their effort to dismiss the charges before going to trial, including that several alleged crimes were listed under a single indictment and that prosecutors failed to prove that Nauta and the Oliveria knew that it contained secret documents. in the boxes they are accused of moving. The defense also claimed that the form in which the indictment was written was technically insufficient.
Cannon rejected those claims because she said the language in the complaint was legally permissible. In some circumstances, she wrote, the issues could be raised by the defense at trial.
While it was a near-total victory for Smith, the judge’s ruling also criticized the style of the special counsel’s indictment for containing “non-essential allegations that read more like a story about the government’s theory of prosecution.” . Cannon wrote that the “speaking indictment” — a term used to describe a descriptive charging document — contained allegations and language against Trump that were “legally unnecessary” to the underlying allegations.
Despite the criticism, she ruled that almost the entire 60-page indictment would stand, with the exception of a single paragraph in which prosecutors described a moment in 2021 when Trump allegedly gave a person who did not have a security clearance a secret map of a foreign nation showed. .
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The judge wrote that the paragraph was unnecessary and would be dropped from the indictment since Trump is not accused of showing classified data to anyone else. However, she did leave open the possibility that the alleged conduct could be included in some legal process after due process.
Her statement was in line with comments she has made during previous hearings in which she specifically called the charging documents against Trump a “talking indictment” and noted their length.
Cannon’s order Monday also echoed others published in recent months in which she rejected Trump’s legal arguments but wrote critically of the special counsel and his prosecutors.
In April, she agreed with Smith that the names of potential witnesses could be included remain redacted in publicly filed documents, but scolded prosecutors for not making that particular argument sooner. Last month, Cannon criticized Smith’s team for failing to consult with the defense and described them as having “a total lack of substance and professional courtesy” when they rejected their request to limit Trump’s speech about law enforcement in this case. However, Cannon allowed the special counsel to resubmit his request and she is still considering it.
A trial date in the case has yet to be set as the judge said she is handling other pretrial matters. Cannon previously rejected other arguments from Trump that the charges should be dropped and has held public hearings on several motions over the summer months.
Smith also sued Trump in Washington DC on four federal charges alleging he worked to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election. The former president pleaded not guilty to these charges and the case is currently on hold as it Supreme Court considers his claims for presidential immunity from prosecution.
