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Trump watches as judge in Mar-a-Lago classified documents case says it would be an 'extraordinary step' to throw out the charges before trial in high-stakes hearing in Florida
Donald Trump looked on as the judge in his classified documents case on Thursday laid out the challenge his team faced in trying to throw out the charges against him.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon did not immediately rule on the former president's motion to dismiss the case, but she said striking down a statute as he had argued would be 'quite an extraordinary step.'
Trump sat quietly at the defense table with his hands clasped throughout proceedings, listening intently to the discussion.
Across from him sat Special Counsel Jack Smith, prosecutor and Trump nemesis.
Afterwards, Trump, 77, flashed a thumbs up sign as he was driven away from federal court in Fort Pierce past supporters.
Donald Trump, 77, flashed a thumbs up sign to supporters as he was driven away from federal court in Fort Pierce after a hearing in his classified documents case
Supporters of former President Donald Trump cheer as he arrives at federal court
But on Thursday morning he arrived in court after a string of legal victories.
On Wednesday, a judge in Atlanta threw out six charges in a huge conspiracy case against Trump and associates, accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia.
And last week, the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado, or any other state, did not have the power to strike him from ballots because of the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The issue on Thursday was whether or not the documents case should proceed.
Arguments focus on a law that make it a crime for an unauthorized person to willfully retain national defense information. That charge forms the basis of 32 of the 40 felony counts against Trump in the case.
Defense lawyer Emil Bove said ambiguity in the statue permits what he called a 'selective' enforcement by the Justice Department, leading to Trump being charged but enabling others to avoid prosecution.
Bove said that includes President Joe Biden, the recent subject of a harshly critical report by special counsel Robert Hur on the president's handling of classified information.
'The court's obligation is to strike the statute and say "Congress, get it right,"' Bove told Cannon.
She has repeatedly pointed out that no former president has ever been charged with mishandling classified documents, and made the same point Thursday.
Jay Bratt, a prosecutor with special counsel Jack Smith's team, responded that there has never been another situation 'remotely similar to this one.'
Earlier he offered as defiant fist as he was driven to the hearing on Thursday morning
One of the vehicles in Trump's motorcade on Thursday morning
Supporters congregated outside the courthouse on Thursday morning
Images from inside Mar-a-Lago shows stacks of boxes of classified documents in a bathroom. This was included in the indictment
The case exploded into public view in August 2022 when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida home and political headquarters
The hearing centered on interpretations of the Presidential Records Act. Trump's lawyers say it gave him the authority to designate documents as his personal property and keep them after leaving office.
Special Counsel Jack Smith instead says the charges relate to presidential records and that the act does not apply to the sort of classified documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago.
In a filing last week, his team said the act 'does not exempt Trump from the criminal law, entitle him to unilaterally declare highly classified presidential records to be personal records, or shield him from criminal investigations — let alone allow him to obstruct a federal investigation with impunity.'
Trump's legal team is hoping that Cannon's ruling will mean the case is thrown out before it even gets to a jury.
And she has in the past hinted that his status as a former president meant he might be treated differently.
This week Trump insisted again that he did nothing wrong.
In an interview with Newsmax, he said the issue was being handled 'very legally' before the 'corrupt' FBI raided his Florida home in the summer in August 2022.
'I was dealing with them,' Trump said. 'We were dealing fine. And then all of a sudden they raided this house. They raided Mar-a-Lago.'
An itemized list of property seized in the execution of a search warrant by the FBI at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, shows documents listed as 'Secret,' 'Confidential' and 'Top Secret'
Photos released as part of the indictment against former President Donald Trump show boxes of documents stacked in rooms across his Mar-a-Lago estate
People wait for a moving van after boxes were moved out of the Eisenhower Executive Office building inside the White House complex, on Jan. 14, 2021, in Washington, as the Trump administrations enters its final days in office
Armed Secret Service agents outside Mar-a-Lago on Aug 8, 2022
Former President Donald Trump blasted the federal government's handling of his classified documents case in a Wednesday interview with Newsmax
And he said authorities were operating double standards by not pursuing charges against President Joe Biden, who also kept documents after his term as vice president ended.
'But they release Biden,' he raged.
Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 election on Tuesday.
Latest polls suggest he has a five-point lead over Biden in their rematch of the 2020 election.
The former president faces 40 felony counts in Florida, accusing him of willfully keeping dozens of classified documents and failing to act on demands that they be returned.
Prosecutors in recent court filings have stressed the scope of criminal conduct that they say they expect to prove at trial, saying in one that 'there has never been a case in American history in which a former official has engaged in conduct remotely similar to Trump's.