Washington — Federal judge overseeing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case Confidential Documents Incident The Supreme Court has again rejected a request by his lawyers to dismiss the charges against Donald Trump, according to an order filed Monday night.
Judge Eileen Cannon While she denied numerous arguments by Trump’s lawyers and his co-defendants that the 2023 indictment was technically flawed, she criticized the prosecutors’ description of certain events as unnecessary to the indictment and agreed to remove one paragraph from the indictment because she said it “improperly contained an alleged crime that was not charged.”
Smith charged Trump with 40 counts, including illegally storing national defense information, after investigators found hundreds of classified White House documents in his Florida mansion. The former president and his co-defendants Assistant Chief Walter Nauta Former Mar-a-Lago employee Carlos de Oliveira — and is also accused of participating in a plot to obstruct a federal investigation.
All three have pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
Smith’s office declined to comment on the recent ruling, and a representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Trump, Nauta and de Oliveira made numerous arguments to the court seeking to have the charges dismissed before the trial began, including that multiple criminal charges were included in a single indictment and that the prosecution had failed to prove that they knew that the boxes Nauta and de Oliveira allegedly moved contained classified documents. The defense also argued that the indictment was technically deficient in form.
Cannon denied those allegations, saying the language in the indictment is legally permissible. Depending on the circumstances, those issues could be raised by the defense at trial, Cannon wrote.
While it was a near-total victory for Smith, the ruling also criticized the style of the special counsel’s indictment, which included “insignificant allegations that are more like a narrative of the government’s theory of prosecution.” Cannon wrote that the “oral indictment” — a term for a descriptive indictment — contained allegations and language against Trump that were “legally unnecessary” to the underlying charges.
Despite the criticism, she found nearly the entire 60-page indictment to be valid, except for one paragraph in which prosecutors described the moment in 2021 when Trump allegedly showed a classified map of a foreign country to someone without a security clearance.
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The judge wrote that because Trump was not charged with showing classified documents to others, the provision was unnecessary and would be removed from the indictment, but left open the possibility that the conduct could be raised in any trial after proper litigation.
Her ruling is consistent with comments she has made in past court hearings, in which she specifically called the indictment against Trump an “oral indictment” and noted its length.
Cannon’s order on Monday is similar to others issued in recent months in which he has written criticism of the special counsel and prosecutors while rejecting Trump’s legal claims.
In April, she agreed with Smith that the names of potential witnesses The details remain redacted in the public documents.But he scolded prosecutors for not making that argument sooner. Last month, Cannon criticized Smith’s team for not consulting with the defense, saying she He rejected calls to limit Trump’s speech. Regarding enforcement of the case, however, Cannon granted the special counsel permission to refile the request, which is still under review.
No trial date has been set for the case, and the judge said he is addressing other pretrial matters. Judge Cannon has previously rejected other arguments filed by Trump that the charges should be dropped and has set hearings on various motions over the summer.
Smith also filed a four-count federal lawsuit against Trump in Washington, D.C., charging him with working to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The former president has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the case is currently on hold while the Supreme Court considers the president’s claim of immunity from prosecution.
