Prosecutors reject claims of dishonesty in Trump secret documents case
Federal prosecutors on Monday rejected former President Donald J. Trump’s claims that he was wrongly accused of keeping classified documents after leaving office, saying his case was not comparable to the one in which President Biden was acquitted of wrongdoing , even though he was. found in possession of classified material after leaving the vice presidency.
In rejecting what was known as Mr. Trump’s claim of “selective prosecution,” prosecutors said that while many government officials over the years had taken classified material with them after leaving office — often unintentionally, but occasionally deliberately – Mr Trump’s case survived. unique because of the extent to which he had ‘resisted the government’s lawful efforts to recover them’.
“There has never been a case in American history in which a former official has engaged in conduct even remotely comparable to that of Trump,” they wrote.
In their twelve-page fileprosecutors have addressed a separate claim that Mr. Trump raised in his defense — that Mr. Biden “secretly took charge” of the case with classified documents and used the special counsel who filed the indictment, Jack Smith, dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theory’. as a ‘doll’ and a ‘stalking horse’.
“Decisions made by the Department of Justice in general, and the Special Counsel in particular, were made based on the facts and the law, and not on political considerations,” prosecutors wrote. “The defendants offer no evidence to the contrary because such evidence is lacking.”
Selective prosecution petitions are notoriously difficult to win because they require suspects to essentially prove that prosecutors discriminated against them by not filing charges against “similarly situated persons.” Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued for months that Mr. Smith selectively and vindictively brought his case against the former president during his campaign for the White House for partisan political reasons.
But their claims swelled this month after a second special counsel, Robert K. Hur, released a report clearing Mr. Biden of any criminal wrongdoing after classified material was discovered in his possession several years ago.
In his report, Mr. Hur concluded that the cases involving Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden were not the same, largely because Mr. Biden had fully cooperated with investigators while Mr. Trump had tried to defy them in a variety of ways.
Mr. Smith’s prosecutors agreed, noting in their filing that in addition to illegally retaining “an enormous amount of some of the country’s most sensitive documents,” Mr. Trump also engaged in a “series of intentional and deceptive criminal conduct” intended to hinder efforts to recover the classified documents.
Prosecutors, citing their own indictment, said that Mr. Trump had initially defied the National Archives’ efforts to recover the documents and then “engaged in additional deception” by archives officials “only a fraction of the documents in to give up his property, while claiming that his production was complete.”
Mr. Trump also enlisted one of his own lawyers in a “corrupt attempt” to evade a grand jury subpoena demanding the return of all classified materials in his possession, prosecutors said. They noted that at one point Mr. Trump suggested to the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, that he “hide or destroy documents rather than turning them over to the government.”
After those efforts failed, prosecutors said, Trump had one of his personal assistants, Walt Nauta, move boxes of documents to Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s private club and residence in Florida, in an effort to deceive Mr. . Corcoran and keep the secret materials hidden.
Ultimately, prosecutors said, Mr. Trump called out Mr. Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira in an effort to delete video footage showing the boxes being moved.
Both Mr Nauta and Mr De Oliveira have been charged as co-defendants of Mr Trump in the case.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers have now twice filed claims of selective and vindictive prosecution in two separate filings before Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the classified documents case in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Florida.
The first came three weeks ago as part of a request to the judge to force the government to provide additional information they believe could support their arguments that the case was brought unfairly. The second came late last week in a motion to dismiss the complaint filed under seal with the judge.
Mr. Smith’s prosecutors said they would refute the claims in more detail when they respond to the request to dismiss the case next month.
At the end of this week, Judge Cannon has scheduled a hearing in Fort Pierce to decide the separate question of when the classified documents trial will take place. Currently scheduled to begin on May 20, the judge has already said she is inclined to make some “reasonable adjustments” to the timing of the case.