Video above: Trump returns to campaign trail
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge refused Thursday to throw out the classified documents prosecution against Donald Trump, turning aside defense arguments that a decades-old law permitted the former president to retain the records after he left office.
Lawyers for Trump, in asking for the case to be tossed out, had cited a 1978 statute known as the Presidential Records Act in arguing that he was permitted to designate records from his time in office as personal and take them with him when he left the White House.
Prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team vigorously challenged that argument, saying the statute had no relevance in a case concerning classified documents and there was no legal basis for Trump to hold onto top-secret information.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who heard arguments on the matter last month, rejected the Trump team’s arguments in a three-order. She wrote that the 40-count indictment against Trump makes “no reference to the Presidential Records Act, nor do they rely on that statute for purposes of stating an offense.”
Cannon also defended an order from last month that asked lawyers for both sides to formulate potential jury instructions and
