Judge denies, for now, a Trump bid to dismiss charges that he hoarded clas docs

Source: Politico | April 4, 2024 | Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney

Judge denies, for now, a Trump bid to dismiss charges that he hoarded classified documents

But Judge Aileen Cannon left open the possibility for Trump to continue to argue that a presidential recordkeeping law allowed him to keep the documents.

The judge overseeing the case against Donald Trump on charges that he amassed classified documents at his Florida estate has rejected, for now, his bid to throw out the bulk of the case based on the argument that he had the right to keep those documents under a federal law governing presidential records.

However, the three-page ruling Thursday by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon left open the possibility for Trump to continue raising that argument if a trial takes place in the case.

In the same decision, Cannon also shot down a request from special counsel Jack Smith to promptly reveal whether she agrees with Trump’s claim that the Presidential Records Act — the post-Watergate law governing White House records — may have authorized him to keep classified records indefinitely even after leaving office.

Smith’s team has denounced that theory as “pure fiction” and urged Cannon to give the prosecutors enough time to appeal if she sides with Trump on that legal question.

But Cannon called the prosecutors’ demand to confirm what she plans to tell the jury about that issue “unprecedented and unjust.”

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