Washington – Federal judge overseeing special counsel Jack Smith confidential document case to Donald Trump has once again rejected a request by the former president’s legal team to drop the charges against him, according to an order filed on Friday afternoon.
Judge Aileen Cannon denied many of the claims by Trump’s defense attorneys and his colleagues who argued the 2023 indictment was technically flawed, but he criticized the prosecutor’s description of one of the incidents that was not necessary for the charges and agreed to strike one paragraph of the indictment document because he said “it does not contain charges of uncharged offences.”
Smith indicted Trump on 40 counts that include the unauthorized storage of national defense information after investigators recovered hundreds of classified documents from his time in the White House at his Florida home. The former president and his friends – Walta Nauta’s assistant and a former employee of Mar-a-Lago Carlos de Oliveira — also accused of participating in an alleged plot to obstruct a federal investigation.
All three have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
Smith’s office declined to comment on the decision. A Trump representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Trump, Nauta and de Oliveira made many objections to the court in an attempt to dismiss the charges before the trial, including several alleged crimes listed in one charge and the prosecutor’s failure to show Nauta and de Oliveria knew that there were secret documents. in the box they were accused of moving. The defense also said the form on which the allegations were written was technically insufficient.
Cannon denied the claim because he said the language in the indictment was legally permissible. In some situations, he wrote, the issue can be raised by the defense at trial.
Despite the near-total victory for Smith, the judge’s ruling also criticized the style of the special counsel’s indictment as containing “insubstantial allegations more akin to the narrative of the government’s prosecution theory.” Cannon wrote the “talking indictment” — a term used to describe the descriptive charging document — contained allegations and language against Trump that was “not legally necessary” to the underlying charges.
Despite the criticism, he ruled that almost all of the 60-page indictment would stand, except for one paragraph in which prosecutors described the moment in 2021 when Trump allegedly showed people without security clearance classified maps of foreign countries. .
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The judge wrote that the paragraph was unnecessary and would be struck from the indictment, because Trump was not charged with sharing classified records of others. However, they leave open the possibility that the defendant’s actions may be entered in any court after a proper trial.
The ruling echoes comments he has made in past court hearings, where he specifically referred to the indictment document against Trump as a “talking indictment” and noted its length.
Cannon’s order on Monday also echoes others published in recent months in which he dismissed Trump’s legal objections, but wrote critically of the special counsel and prosecutors.
In April, he agreed with Smith that the names of potential witnesses should be remain redacted in publicly filed documents, but scolded the prosecutor for not making that particular argument quickly. Last month, Cannon criticized Smith’s team for failing to engage with the defense and described him as “lacking substance and professional decency” when he rejected his request to limit Trump’s speech about law enforcement in the case. However, Cannon allowed the special counsel to address his request and he is still considering it.
A trial date in the case has not been set because the judge said he is working on other pretrial matters. Cannon previously rejected other arguments brought by Trump that the charges should be dismissed and has held public hearings on various motions over the summer months.
Smith also accused Trump in Washington, DC, of ​​four federal counts that allege that he worked to alter the results of the 2020 presidential election. The former president pleaded not guilty to the charges and the case is currently on hold as the Supreme Court considers the president’s claim of immunity from prosecution.
