Left: Former President Donald Trump, center, sits at the defense table at New York Supreme Court, Dec. 7, 2023, in New York City. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, Pool, File)./Right: Special counsel Jack Smith speaks about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File).
Special counsel Jack Smith revealed new details on the roots of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, saying the government “confronted an extraordinary situation: a former President engaging in calculated and persistent obstruction of the collection of Presidential records.”
The case stems from Trump’s indictment in the Southern District of Florida accusing him of mishandling and illegally retaining classified and sensitive records after leaving office, including storing them in his bathroom and shower at Mar-a-Lago and allegedly showing them off at his golf club.
Smith’s filing on Friday, which was in response to Trump’s motion to compel discovery from Smith’s team, explained the response when the government learned Trump allegedly possessed the classified documents.
By law, the classified documents belong to the United States, Smith wrote, “for the benefit of history and posterity, and, as a matter of fact, here included a trove of highly classified documents containing some of the nation’s most sensitive information.”
“The law required that those documents be collected. And the record establishes that the relevant government officials performed their tasks with professionalism and patience in the face of unprecedented defiance,” Smith wrote in the filing.
The motion from Trump’s lawyers included conspiracy-theory-laden accusations at special counsel Jack Smith including claims that prosecutors are hiding evidence. As Law&Crime reported last week, Trump has doubled down on claims that his Florida-based prosecution is part of a conspiracy that encompasses the federal government and media organizations.
Smith and his team of prosecutors, Trump attorney Christopher Kise wrote, are seeking to “avert its eyes from exculpatory evidence in the hands of the senior officials” not just at the Archives but at numerous agencies like, he claims, FBI, the Justice Department, the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, the National Security Agency, the State Department and others.
In response, Smith asked the court to deny the defendants’ multiple requests for evidence of “improper coordination” with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and of “bias and investigative misconduct,” saying the claims are not material to the defense and that some of the requests seek evidence that does not exist or is not within the government’s possession.
Smith also wanted U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to deny discovery related to Trump’s security clearance with the Department of Energy, evidence about secure facilities at President Donald Trump’s residences, and materials concerning the search of Mar-a-Lago and CCTV footage.
“The defendants have received substantial, timely, and thorough discovery in this case,” the document said. “By early September 2023, the government had provided the defendants with over 1.28 million pages of unclassified discovery and all of the CCTV footage obtained in the investigation; since then, the government has supplemented its production as necessary. This production not only complies with the government’s constitutional and rule-based discovery obligations; it goes far beyond.”
Smith argued Trump’s lawyers have filed a lengthy motion seeking “abstract rulings” on the scope of the prosecution team and various directives that the government provides them with a range of additional materials.
“The motion should be denied as legally and factually flawed,” Smith’s filing said. “Instead of meeting those standards, the defendants’ motion seeks non-discoverable materials based on speculative, unsupported, and false theories of political bias and animus.”
“Many of the requests are so generalized that it is difficult to decipher what they seek,” Smith continues. “Others reflect pure conjecture detached from the facts surrounding this prosecution. For still others, the government has already furnished the defendants with what they seek to the extent that the law requires.”
The news came after Smith and Cannon held a three-hour ex-parte hearing — outside the presence of the other party — to evaluate classified filings by Smith being sought by Trump and his co-defendants.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 41 counts of mishandling documents as well as obstructing justice and making false statements and representations and charges related to destroying or attempting to alter or destroy an object
Trump and two co-conspirators — Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — have also pleaded not guilty. The trial is currently slated for May 20.
Law&Crime’s Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
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