Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event. (Joshua Boucher/The State/TNS)
Donald Trump asked a judge to toss out criminal charges over his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House on the grounds that he’s protected by presidential immunity, his latest attempt at using the legal theory to escape prosecution.
Trump’s alleged decision to move dozens of boxes of government documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate at the tail end of his presidency was an “official act” that isn’t subject to judicial scrutiny, his lawyer Todd Blanche said in a filing Thursday night asking to toss the case out.
“President Trump departed the White House prior to ‘12:00 p.m. on January 20, 2021,’ and as such he is alleged to have made these decisions concerning the documents at issue while he was the Commander-in-Chief,” Blanche said.
The filing sets up a high-stakes ruling by US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who must decide whether the case brought last year by Special Counsel Jack Smith can proceed to trial as soon as May 20. It comes as the US Supreme Court is weighing Trump’s argument for immunity in Smith’s other case against Trump over his attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election.
Trump is facing four criminal prosecutions as he campaigns to return to the White House in the November election. His first criminal trial, over claims he falsified business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election, is set to start March 25 in Manhattan. Trump denies wrongdoing and claims all the cases are part of a Democratic-led “witch hunt” against him.
Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleges Trump engaged in relentless efforts to hide documents from authorities once the government began searching for them, instructing aides to shuttle boxes of sensitive information at Mar-a-Lago from a ballroom to a bathroom to a storage room, as well as his office. Trump allegedly shared secret documents freely and indicated he knew some were classified.
Nuclear Weapons
Trump also argued in separate filings in the case Thursday night that dozens of charges should be dismissed because the law around his alleged conduct is “unconstitutionally vague.” He also argues that for one of the charges in particular - over his handling of a secret document related to US nuclear weapons - he “maintained the appropriate security clearance at the time in question.”
Smith’s office declined to comment on the filing. The government’s response to Trump’s motion is due March 7.
Trump was hit with new obstruction charges in the records case last July, including allegations that he and two employees attempted to delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance video footage. The revised indictment accused Trump of directing employees to erase footage of a storage room where the documents were kept, days after his lawyers received a subpoena for any such recordings.
In addition to Trump’s personal valet, Waltine “Walt” Nauta, the revised indictment added a third defendant to the criminal case, Trump maintenance worker Carlos de Oliveira. De Oliveira referred to Trump as “the boss” and allegedly told another employee that “the boss” wanted a server with camera footage deleted. It wasn’t clear if those recordings were actually erased.
The two other defendants have also pleaded not guilty and are expected to file motions to dismiss the charges.
