On Monday, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected Trump’s request to dismiss certain charges in Jack Smith’s case involving classified documents.
President Trump and his co-defendant Walt Nauta had sought to dismiss charges related to obstruction and false statements.
Despite their efforts, Cannon refused the motion, although she did remove a paragraph from Jack Smith’s superseding indictment.
This is the paragraph in Smith’s indictment Cannon has removed. She called Smith’s reasons for including this alleged incident in his indictment “not appropriate.” pic.twitter.com/h1YZMyujzI
— Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) June 10, 2024
Fox News reported:
The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Trump has denied a motion to dismiss some of the charges in the indictment.
Trump’s legal team had sought to throw out more than a half dozen of the 41 counts in the indictment, which accuses the former commander in chief of illegally hoarding classified documents from his presidency and conspiring with others to conceal sensitive files from the federal government.
The defendants had challenged counts related to obstruction and false statements, but U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued an order Monday saying that “the identified deficiencies, even if generating some arguable confusion, are either permitted by law, raise evidentiary challenges not appropriate for disposition at this juncture, and/or do not require dismissal even if technically deficient, so long as the jury is instructed appropriately and presented with adequate verdict forms as to each Defendants’ alleged conduct.”
Judge Aileen Cannon will hold an expanded hearing on the validity of Jack Smith’s special counsel appointment.
President Trump previously filed a motion to dismiss Jack Smith’s classified documents charges based on the “unlawful appointment and funding of Special Counsel.”
The evidentiary hearing is set for June 21.
Last month, Judge Cannon indefinitely postponed the classified documents case after Special Counsel Jack Smith confessed to tampering with evidence.
The trial date of May 20, 2024 was vacated, and it may be several months before a new date is set by Judge Cannon. Smith admitted that the FBI had tampered with the boxes containing “classified” documents seized from Trump and could not ascertain the original order or placement of the documents.
This admission contradicted the previous assurance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) that the placement of classified documents had been maintained.
This revelation indicated that the DOJ had lied to the Court in August 2022 when they claimed that the red, blue, and yellow sheets seen in a viral photo of the classified documents were indicative of their classification status.
The FBI has acknowledged tampering with Trump’s documents by utilizing cover sheets as temporary placeholders for the classified materials.
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