Former President Donald Trump has challenged special counsel Jack Smith’s bid to conceal case details in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents trial, arguing in a new court filing that Mr. Smith’s sealing requests undermine his ability to get a fair trial.
Mr. Smith’s team has sought to keep some documents sealed in the case that accuses the former president of retaining sensitive government materials, including some that were marked top secret, at his Mar-a-Lago home.
President Trump has said he used presidential powers to declassify the materials, insisting that he isn’t guilty and calling the case an attempt by his political foes to hamper his 2024 presidential run.
President Trump’s attorneys said in the filing that Mr. Smith made only “vague claims” concerning witness safety and national security in opposing the former president’s request for evidence that could help him prove his innocence.
The former president’s attorneys further argued that it’s “difficult to understand” how the case could even proceed if the court fully grants Mr. Smith’s request to keep some evidence hidden.
“It is difficult to understand how the substantive litigation that is necessary to vindicate President Trump’s defenses to the pending charges can proceed in public, as required, if the Office’s general arguments regarding sealing are credited in full as the case proceeds,” they wrote.
It comes as President Trump’s defense team and Mr. Smith’s prosecutors have been litigating over what portion of classified materials the defendants are allowed to view and disclose to the public.
Trump Team Arguments
President Trump’s attorneys on Jan. 16 filed a motion to compel discovery, pointing to new evidence from 22 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) releases that show political motivation in the classified documents case.They asked the court to force Mr. Smith to turn over “exculpatory, discoverable evidence in the hands of senior officials at the White House, DOJ, and FBI who provided guidance and assistance as this lawless mission proceeded, and the agencies that supported the flawed investigation from its inception,” including the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
A significant portion of the new evidence President Trump is requesting has been redacted in the publicly available Jan. 16 court filing, with redactions featured in such sections of the filing as “Early Indication of NARA bias,” “The White House Instructs NARA To Contact Prosecutors,” and “NARA’s Sham’ Referral.’”
In the indictment against President Trump, the prosecutors claimed that NARA independently referred the case to the Department of Justice (DOJ), but defense attorneys argue that this was false and that the White House had instructed NARA to involve prosecutors.
“Though the Special Counsel’s Office has suppressed these communications, we know from FOIA releases that NARA started to coordinate with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community by Jan. 25, 2022,” the defense argued.
Smith Team Response
On Jan. 18, Mr. Smith filed a response to President Trump’s Jan. 16 motion to compel discovery. In its response, the special counsel said he supports “full transparency of the record,” but he opposes President Trump’s motion to disclose certain materials out of concern for witness safety.“Although safety of prospective witnesses is a prime concern, it is not the only one,” Mr. Smith wrote in opposition to President Trump’s motion, adding that “public disclosure of witness identities or their statements in advance of trial also risks infecting the testimony of other witnesses or unnecessarily influencing the jury pool.”
Mr. Smith objected to the unsealing of any information requested in President Trump’s Jan. 16 motion to compel discovery. He also cites additional, specific information he wants to keep sealed, including “two of the signals intelligence sub-compartments” and the “FBI code name of a separate investigation” as well as “uncharged conduct as to one or more individuals.”
“Those pieces of information should also remain redacted and subject to the protective order,” Mr. Smith wrote in opposition to President Trump’s request to disclose evidence.
Further, Mr. Smith claimed President Trump’s latest motion to compel discovery was “replete with mischaracterizations and baseless arguments.”
In the Jan. 22 filing, President Trump’s attorneys accused Mr. Smith’s team of taking “unprecedented steps to fuel biased press coverage and public interest in the proceedings in order to interfere with President Trump’s leading campaign for the presidency.”
President Trump is currently the frontrunner by far in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
