Former President Donald Trump is once again pushing to throw out the classified documents case, claiming that investigators tampered with evidence during the FBI’s 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s defense team argues that classified documents were found among the former president’s personal effects from his first term in office and were not organized properly in the boxes seized by the FBI. They claim that investigators failed to document the location of seized items within the boxes and did not maintain the order of the documents they searched, leading to the destruction of exculpatory evidence.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has acknowledged in court that some of the documents may be out of order and have shifted since the initial search. Despite the government’s assurance that the documents remain in their original boxes, Trump’s attorneys argue that vital evidence has been lost forever due to the lack of professionalism shown by investigators. They claim that the government was more concerned with staging and leaking manipulated photographs to the press than preserving key evidence that could exonerate the former president.
Trump’s defense lawyers have asked the judge to dismiss the charges or, at the very least, throw out any evidence gathered during the 2022 search. The judge has yet to decide on several other motions to dismiss the case from Trump and his co-defendants, who have all pleaded not guilty. While one of their motions to dismiss the case was rejected due to technical defects in the indictment, the judge removed prosecutors’ account of Trump allegedly mishandling a classified map. However, this evidence could potentially be reintroduced by Smith’s office in the future.
Republicans in Congress have also seized on the revelation that some of the documents were not in order, using this as another point of contention in the case. The defense team argues that a third-party review of the seized materials, ordered after the Mar-a-Lago search, may have contributed to the document being out of order. They claim that the FBI’s filter team, responsible for segregating potentially privileged documents, failed to preserve the original order of the documents within the boxes.
In addition to seeking the dismissal of the case, the defense attorneys have requested an extension to disclose their potential expert witnesses for trial. They claim that one expert they were hoping to put on their witness list has declined to participate in the case. Smith’s office opposes this delay, indicating that they are eager to move forward with the proceedings. The ongoing legal battle continues with both sides presenting their arguments in court as the former president fights to clear his name and avoid potential consequences from the classified documents case.
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