Over the past few months, federal prosecutors and lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump have privately fought allegations of wrongdoing and politicization of the government’s handling of the investigation that led to to the indictment accusing Mr. Trump of illegally holding classified documents. documents after he left the office.
The fight attracted public attention on Tuesday when the judge overseeing the case revealed several moves by Mr. Trump attacking the integrity of the investigation and claims that the special counsel, Jack Smith , timed his accusations to create maximum political damage.
The vigorous and often baseless filings by Mr. Trump’s lawyers amounted to a multi-pronged attack on the foundation of the classified documents lawsuit and were the sharpest presentation yet in an argument that the former president often brought up during the campaign: that law enforcement had been weaponized against him in a series of excessive and politically charged witch hunts.
The two filings, released along with hundreds of pages of supporting documents, include a series of investigative steps taken by the government that the defense says were improper.
In a filing responding to Mr. Trump’s claims, also unsealed on Tuesday, Mr. Smith’s prosecutors vehemently defended themselves, denying there had been any wrongdoing or any attempt to politicizing an investigation that from the beginning, they said, had “a measured, graduated approach.”
In their filing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers accused “politically biased” officials in the National Archives, the agency responsible for controlling the president’s records, of agreed with the Biden administration to open a criminal investigation into the former president even before they found classified documents. in the first batch of 15 boxes they received from Mr. Trump in January 2022.
And they claim, without offering any evidence, that federal prosecutors illegally waited until last June to bring indictments against Mr. his primary campaign and hurt his chances in this November’s general election.
“The special counsel’s office has timed charges in this case to maximize the likelihood that the prosecution will impede President Trump’s ability to continue his campaign to win the election,” the attorneys wrote. won the Republican nomination and defeated President Biden.”
In a separate move, Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who oversaw the proceedings, to exclude from the case any evidence — including more than 100 classified documents — that The FBI made the discovery in August 2022 when agents searched Mar-a- Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.
The lawyers also asked Judge Cannon to suppress private recordings that prosecutors obtained from one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers through a process that circumvents normal protections for attorney-client privilege. The notes by lawyer M. Evan Corcoran are central to the government’s accusation that Mr. Trump obstructed the government’s ongoing efforts to retrieve classified documents he removed from the White House.
Prosecutors called the former president’s claim that the National Archives colluded with the Biden administration a “conspiracy theory” based on a misinterpreted sentence in an email in which an attorney for the The National Archives forwarded a draft letter from archives officials to the Department of Justice.
Prosecutors rejected Mr. Trump’s claim that they delayed filing the indictment to give Mr. Biden a “tactical advantage,” asserting that “the investigation and charges are based solely on facts and the law”. They noted that, since the indictment was filed, the former president’s lawyers have often accused them of moving too quickly in moving the case to trial.
They also said that the warrant authorizing the search of Mar-a-Lago was properly approved by a federal judge and was necessary because “Trump possessed a trove of classified documents and attempted to conceal and deceive keep them.”
As for Mr. Trump’s efforts to prevent the jury from hearing Mr. Corcoran’s recording, prosecutors said a federal judge in Washington had determined that attorney-client privilege could be overridden. set aside in this case under a provision known as criminal fraud. exception, which allows prosecutors to circumvent the protection if they believe a crime has been committed.
The two unsealed filings were originally filed in February with Judge Cannon, who is hearing the case in her home court in Fort Pierce, Fla. But their release was delayed for months as she worked with the defense and prosecution to redact the names of witnesses and other sensitive information from the text, a time-consuming process that delay in making some other recommendations.
It is unclear when Judge Cannon will rule on the motions from Mr. Trump’s team or whether she will schedule a hearing on them.
Many of Judge Cannon The decisions have played an important role in Mr. Trump’s overall strategy seeks to delay any trial until after the election in November. Earlier this month, the judge said She won’t set a trial date until at least the end of July.
The newly released records are just one series in a larger series series of movements that Mr. Trump’s lawyers released to attack the classified documents indictment. Lawyers have questioned the legality of Mr. Smith’s appointment and argued that Mr. Trump is protected from prosecution by executive immunity.
They also claimed that prosecutors unfairly and vindictively charged the former president because other public officials, like President Biden, were not indicted after being found in possession of documents honey.
