04/04/2024

Judge Rejects Trump Request to Dismiss Classified Documents Prosecution

The ruling turned aside turning defense arguments citing the Presidential Records Act

On Thursday, a federal judge refused to throw out the classified documents prosecution against Donald Trump, turning aside defense arguments that a decades-old law permitted the former president to retain the sensitive records after he left office.

Lawyers for Trump had cited a 1978 statute known as the Presidential Records Act in demanding that the case, one of four against the presumptive Republican nominee, be tossed out before trial. That law requires presidents upon leaving office to turn over presidential records to the federal government but permits them to retain purely personal papers.

Prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team countered that that law had no relevance to a case concerning the mishandling of classified documents and said the records Trump is alleged to have hoarded at his Mar-a-Lago estate were unquestionably presidential records, not personal files, and therefore had to be returned to the government when Trump left the White House in January 2021.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Associated Press.