Federal prosecutors in Donald Trump's secret documents case have released recent photos showing what they are saying are the “arbitrary manner” during which Trump stored boxes of documents that federal agents later seized at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
The submission got here in response to Trump’s recent Motion to dismiss The case argued that FBI agents destroyed “exculpatory evidence” by not keeping the documents in the identical order during which they found them.
Pointing to the photos – a few of which show documents scattered on the ground, others of which show various items akin to clothing and newspapers within the boxes – prosecutors said Trump's motion to dismiss the case should be rejected and not using a hearing.
“Given the haphazard manner in which Trump stored his boxes, he now claims that the precise order in which the items were in the boxes as they left the White House was critical to his defense,” prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith wrote within the transient filed Monday evening.
In addition to rejecting Trump's claim that such an order existed, prosecutors argued that federal agents “maintained the integrity of every single container in which evidence was found, that is, box-to-box integrity.”
“The FBI agents who conducted the search did so professionally, thoroughly and carefully under difficult circumstances,” they wrote, “particularly given the overcrowded condition of the boxes and the significant amount of top-secret documents Trump had kept.”
The former president faces 40 federal charges related to his alleged retention of classified government documents after his presidency ended and his attempts to maintain the documents secret from federal authorities.
Trump's trial was scheduled to start on May 20, but a federal judge postponed that date indefinitely last month. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's May 7 ruling also arrange a series of recent pretrial proceedings, making all of it but certain that the likely nominee won’t face trial until the November election.
Cannon oversaw two Hearings within the case on Monday in her courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida, NBC News reported.
The first hearing was on a separate defense motion to dismiss the case difficult the constitutionality of Smith's appointment as special counsel. The second hearing was on a special counsel's request for a news gag order against Trump.
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