By Andrew Goudsward
Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 2 April. Photo: Spencer Platt / Getty Images / AFP
Donald Trump suffered a pair of legal setbacks on Thursday as judges spurned his calls to dismiss criminal charges over the former US president's efforts to overturn his 2020 loss in Georgia and his keeping classified records after leaving office.
Separately, one of the Republican presidential candidate's allies, former Justice Department official attorney Jeffrey Clark, faced the risk of disbarment after a Washington panel found he violated some attorney ethics rules in his attempts to enlist the agency to help overturn Trump's loss.
Those cases represent just some of the legal entanglements facing Trump, who has been criminally charged in four cases as he challenges Democratic President Joe Biden in the 5 November election, with the first-ever trial of a sitting or former US president due to get underway in New York on 15 April.
Florid-based US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday rejected Trump's argument that the case accusing him of illegally holding onto classified documents should be thrown out on the basis of his argument that they were his personal records rather than government property.
Trump had argued that his retention of highly sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office in 2021 was authorised under a US law that lets former presidents keep personal records unrelated to their official responsibilities.
Prosecutors in the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith have said the documents relate to US military and intelligence matters, including details about the American nuclear programme and could not be construed as personal.
In an earlier Thursday setback, a Georgia judge rejected Trump's bid to dismiss criminal charges in the state's 2020 election interference case against him, which Trump argued violate his free speech rights.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee found that the indictment alleges statements by Trump and 14 others charged in the case were made "in furtherance of criminal activity" and are not protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Trump, who has called all four criminal indictments against him politically motivated, still has several pending challenges to the documents case, including arguments that he has presidential immunity from prosecution and that he was selectively targeted by prosecutors.
The US Supreme Court late this month will hear arguments in his immunity claim in a federal case in Washington, DC, related to his attempts to overturn his election defeat.
Trump has delayed trials in three of the four criminal cases. It is unclear if any besides the one in New York will reach a jury before the November election.
Trump-appointed judge
In the Florida case, Cannon had expressed scepticism at a 14 March court hearing that the case should be dismissed based on Trump's argument, but said at that time that it may have "some force" as a defence at trial. The judge, appointed to the bench by Trump, on 18 March then directed the prosecution and defence to propose jury instructions based on two legal scenarios assuming Trump's argument would play a role at trial.
Smith pushed back on that order, which prosecutors argued was based on a flawed premise that the presidential records law is relevant to whether Trump was authorised to keep classified documents.
Cannon responded to that criticism on Thursday, saying her prior order was a "genuine attempt, in the context of the upcoming trial, to better understand the parties' competing positions".
The judge spurned Smith's demand that she quickly decide whether the personal documents claim will be relevant to the trial, saying making a decision at this stage would be "unprecedented and unjust". Smith has said prosecutors would need time to appeal any such ruling.
Trump was not authorised to keep secret information related to US national security after leaving the White House even if he viewed the records as personal, according to prosecutors.
Cannon previously rejected Trump's bid to throw out the central charge against him - violating a portion of a federal law called the Espionage Act concerning wilful retention of national security records - based on claims that the charge was improperly vague.
- Reuters