OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The most consequential hearing in Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s classified documents case against former President Donald Trump has been ordered.
Judge Aileen Cannon has set a date of March 14 to hear a “motion to dismiss” the case and said that attorneys for the prosecution and defense “should reserve [a] full day for argument,” The Epoch Times reported.
If the judge decides in favor of the defense, the classified documents trial would be dead in all likelihood.
Attorneys for the former president said the case should be dismissed on the grounds of presidential immunity.
“Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts draws support directly from the text of the Constitution, as the Impeachment Judgment Clause states that a president cannot be criminally prosecuted unless he is first impeached and convicted by the U.S. Senate,” the attorneys said in one of their motions.
In another filing, they said that the Presidential Records Act “conferred unreviewable discretion on President Trump to designate the records at issue as personal,” which means he was allowed to have the documents, they believe.
But Smith and his team have made counterarguments to say that the case should not be dismissed.
“Whatever authorization a former president may have to possess his personal records, that authority does not override the legal requirements that attach to classified information,” prosecutors said in one filing.
The prosecutors warned that if the judge decides in favor of Trump, it could have “sobering” consequences for the nation.
“Under his view, a President could direct the Special Forces to murder his principal political opponent. He could accept a bribe in exchange for steering a lucrative government contract to the bribe-payer, and he could sell classified information to an adversary, and as long as he was not impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate, he could act with impunity,” prosecutors said.
“And the enlargement of immunity that he offers in this case—protecting not only acts during the presidency but telescoping outward to shield post-presidency conduct—would be particularly dangerous, setting the stage for all manner of reckless and forward-looking criminal acts during the final days of a president’s term,” they said.
The decision to hear the motion to dismiss came after the court allowed third-party amicus briefs in the case.
“The court has reviewed the motions and finds that the proposed amici bring to the court’s attention [a] relevant matter that may be of considerable help to the court in resolving the cited pretrial motions,” the judge said. “The amicus briefs are accepted for court consideration.”
Smith’s team argued that Trump’s case was not the same as President Joe Biden’s classified documents situation, that Special Counsel Robert Hur decided not to prosecute, because Trump, in their opinion, obstructed the investigation.
But Hur’s investigation into Biden and reasons for not prosecuting did have Republicans sounding the alarm.
Hur’s documentation of Biden’s substantial loss of mental capacity comes as recent surveys show many Americans do not believe President Biden can serve another four-year term.
Just the news reported.
Hur’s 388-page report released Thursday may have spared Biden the spectacle of a criminal prosecution similar to that his Justice Department imposed on Donald Trump, but it delivered a devastating blow to the 46th president’s re-election hopes by going out of its way to explain criminal charges weren’t levied in part because jurors might see Biden as a dottering, forgetful old man incapable of criminal intent.
“Mr. Biden will likely present himself to the jury, as he did during his interview with our office, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote in explaining his rationale for refusing prosecution. “…It would be difficult to convince a jury they should convict him – by then a former president who will be at least well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” the report concluded.
Hur added for good measure he believed Biden suffered from “diminished faculties in advancing age.”
