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Judge rejects Trump request to dismiss classified documents prosecution

By ERIC TUCKER
Updated 5:47 PM CDT, April 4, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge refused Thursday to throw out the classified documents prosecution of Donald Trump, .. https://apnews.com/article/trump-classified-documents-delay-trial-election-83be6fb5362e7bb2b7aaf6371a9acabf .. turning aside defense arguments that a decades-old law permitted the former president to retain the sensitive records after he left office.

Lawyers for Trump had cited a 1978 statute known as the Presidential Records Act in demanding that the case, one of four against the presumptive Republican nominee, be tossed out before trial. That law requires presidents upon leaving office to turn over presidential records to the federal government but permits them to retain purely personal papers. Trump’s lawyers have said he designated the records as personal, making them his own property, and that that decision can not be second-guessed in court.

Donald Trump is facing four criminal indictments, and a civil lawsuit.
You can track all of the cases here.
https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/trump-investigations-civil-criminal-tracker/index.html

Prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team countered that the law had no relevance to a case concerning the mishandling of classified documents and said the files Trump is alleged to have hoarded at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida were unquestionably presidential records, not personal ones, and therefore had to be returned to the government when Trump left the White House.

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https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-jack-smith-classified-documents-b862ec627ac0070e5353ac324d8d333f