Christian Smith
FILE – Former Republican President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on May 1, 2024, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Trump told Republican donors on Saturday, May 5, at Mar-a-Lago that President Joe Biden is running a “Gestapo administration,” the latest example of the former president employing the language of Nazi Germany in his rhetoric. campaign. The comments were described by people who attended the event and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private session. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, file)
FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the confidential documents case against former President Donald Trump are scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for the first time since the judge indefinitely postponed the trial earlier this month.
The case, among four criminal cases against Trump, was set for trial on May 20, but U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon cited numerous issues she has not yet resolved as grounds for canceling the trial date.
On Wednesday, Cannon was scheduled to hear arguments on a request from Trump to dismiss the indictment, claiming it fails to clearly articulate a crime and instead amounts to “a personal and political attack against President Trump” with a “ litany of uncharged grievances for both public and media consumption.”
Prosecutors on the team of Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought the case, will argue against that request. Trump, a Republican, is not expected to be present at the hearing.
The motion is one of several that Trump’s lawyers have filed to dismiss the case, some of which have already been denied.
Also scheduled for Wednesday are arguments from Trump’s co-defendant, his valet Walt Nauta, to dismiss the charges.
The arguments come a day after a recently unsealed motion revealed that defense attorneys are trying to exclude evidence from boxes of records that FBI agents seized during a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach a year ago. almost two years.
Defense attorneys asserted in the motion that the August 2022 search was unconstitutional and “illegal” and that the FBI affidavit presented to justify it was tainted by false statements.
Smith’s team rejected each of these accusations and defended the investigative approach as “measured” and “graduated.” He said the search warrant was obtained after investigators collected surveillance video showing what they said was a concerted effort to hide boxes of confidential documents inside the property.
“The warrant was supported by a detailed statement that established probable cause and did not omit any relevant information. And the warrant provided ample guidance to the FBI agents who conducted the search. Trump identifies no plausible basis for suppressing the fruits of this search,” prosecutors wrote.
The defense motion was filed in February but was made public on Tuesday, along with hundreds of pages of investigative documents that were filed in the Florida case.
This includes a previously sealed opinion last year from the then-chief judge of the federal court in Washington, which said that Trump’s lawyers, months after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, turned over four additional documents with classification marks that were found in Trump’s bedroom.
That March 2023 opinion by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell instructed a former Trump lead lawyer in the case to comply with a grand jury subpoena and turn over materials to investigators, rejecting defense arguments that his cooperation was prohibited. for attorney-client privilege and concluding that prosecutors made a “prima facie” showing that Trump had committed a crime.
Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
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Tucker reported from Washington.
