Federal judge to hear pitch to dismiss Trump classified documents case based on alleged US breach of attorney-client privilege
FORT PIERCE — Government and defense lawyers returned to the court of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday for the last of a three-day stretch of hearings designed to weigh multiple attempts by former President Donald Trump to dismiss the government’s classified documents case against him.
The parities reconvened behind closed doors in the morning to discuss issues involving grand jury materials. The courtroom doors were scheduled to reopen to the public at 1 p.m., according to the judge’s website page.
On Monday, tensions rose in the courtroom as the government sought to persuade a skeptical judge to impose restrictions on Trump’s recent harsh and oft-times false criticisms of FBI agents who searched for classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach in 2022.
Trump is under indictment for allegedly retaining sensitive government materials after he left office in 2021. Trump and two employee co-defendants have pleaded not guilty. None of them has been in court while their lawyers argued for the case’s dismissal on several grounds which Cannon has been weighing in hearings since last Friday..
The issues focus on the validity of the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith by Attorney General Merrick Garland, whether the funding of his office is legal and the purported breach of attorney-client privilege by the government, the latter of which is scheduled to be argued Tuesday afternoon.
On Tuesday, ABC News, citing transcripts of audio notes of former lead Trump attorney Evan Corcoran, reported the materials show the former president “privately expressed concerns” that returning documents to the government might result in criminal charges against him. The government alleges Trump sought to conceal dozen of classified papers from his own attorneys and federal agents who would seize 102 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
At the Tuesday afternoon hearing, Cannon is reportedly to hear arguments on Trump’s efforts to limit the prosecutor’s use of the lawyer’s notes and consider whether to dismiss the case because of its reliance on the Corcoran notes.
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