'Critical': Trump could blow up Mar-a-Lago case after Smith admits to document box misstep
Former President Donald Trump is pushing a new grievance in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case — and trying to use it as a basis to throw yet another monkey wrench in the trial.
Trump's co-defendant and body man Walt Nauta recently accused prosecutors of not providing an "accurate" index of the boxes of documents used as evidence and while special counsel Jack Smith denied most of their claims, made some admissions, according to a new report from Law & Crime.
Those admissions — including that some boxes where the order of items within that box were not the same as associated scans — spurred Trump's legal team to respond with outrage, according to the report.
“We are troubled by the concession in your May 3 submission that the prosecution team failed to preserve critical evidence relating to the location of documents within boxes obtained from Mar-a-Lago,” a new letter from Trump's team reportedly reads. “The documents’ location constituted exculpatory information relating to, inter alia, the complete absence of culpable criminal intent by President Trump."
Law & Crime's Colin Kalmbacher notes the prosecution also characterized much of Trump's claims as "bogus and essentially made up."
But Smith's admissions about inconsistencies were quickly seized upon by Trump, he writes.
"Defense attorneys seized on that language and, in a motion seeking leave to file a sur-reply — a reply to a motion that can only be filed with court approval since all briefs on an issue have been filed — framed the disclosure as 'discovery violations, misrepresentations to the Court and potential spoliation resulting from the mishandling of boxes,'" the report continued. "Included with the motion, was a copy of the proposed defense response to the government’s latest admission in the case — which alleges Smith 'attempted to bury' the concession 'in a footnote.'"
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Trump's defense team wants U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to consider this in their motions to suppress evidence and dismiss the case for prosecutorial misconduct, as well as issuing potential sanctions against Smith for improper handling of evidence. According to the report, Trump is also "likely to file a motion to further compel [additional] disclosures — unless Smith makes such disclosures voluntarily."
This comes at the same time Trump is seeking to dismiss the case due to "selective prosecution" — but some experts have said Trump's motion contains "fatal" defects.