U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon rejected Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss the classified documents case against him. The former president argued that the papers should be considered personal under the Presidential Records Act. However, Judge Cannon disagreed and denied the motion.
Hours after Judge Scott McAfee issued a ruling denying Trump’s attempts to have the election interference charges against him in Georgia dropped, citing the First Amendment, she made her decision.
According to Cannon, the charges that Trump was attempting to have dismissed do not mention the Presidential Records Act and do not rely on that statute to establish an offense.
According to her, considering “these reasons, accepting the allegations of the Superseding Indictment as true, the Presidential Records Act does not offer a pre-trial basis to dismiss.”
In a significant win for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in her ongoing legal dispute with Trump, McAfee stated in the order he issued that “while the opportunity to raise similar challenges in the future remains open, the Defendants’ motions grounded in First Amendment arguments are denied.”
According to the order, the Defendants are requesting the dismissal of the indictment based on both as-applied and facial First Amendment grounds. They claim that this prosecution goes against the First Amendment’s protections of political speech and activity, freedom of association, and the right to petition Congress in relation to their alleged conduct. Additionally, they argue that the charges brought against them are overly broad.
Despite the mounting evidence and accusations, Trump maintains his innocence and denies any wrongdoing in both cases.
The Context
Former President Trump faced charges related to alleged election interference in Georgia after the 2020 presidential election. The Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis, indicted Trump and 18 others, accusing them of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
According to Cannon, the case against Trump involves allegations of illegal possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. It is also claimed that he obstructed efforts made by federal officials to retrieve these documents.
What We Know
In Fulton County, Trump’s legal team made a compelling argument last week to have the charges against him dismissed.
According to Trump’s attorney, Steve Sadow, all the allegations against President Trump are purely political speech and lack any factual evidence.
Earlier this week, Jack Smith, the chief prosecutor in the classified documents case, expressed his disagreement with Cannon’s suggested instructions to the jury. The instructions implied that Trump might have had a legal right, as per the Presidential Records Act, to declare presidential records as personal property after his term ended.
In her letter to Cannon, a Trump appointee, Smith expressed concern that the instructions she proposed could potentially distort the ongoing trial involving Trump in Florida.
Views
President Trump and the other defendants respectfully disagree with Judge McAfee’s order, as stated in an interview with Newsweek on Thursday. They will continue to assess their options in relation to the First Amendment challenges. It is worth noting that the court’s ruling acknowledged that the defendants can raise their ‘as-applied challenges at a later stage, once a factual record has been established.’
What’s Next
McAfee has not yet set a date for the trial on election interference, despite Willis’s request for it to begin in August.
The start of the classified documents trial, which was originally set for next month, is expected to be delayed by Cannon.
