OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Sources who spoke with a mainstream news outlet are saying that there is no evidence to suggest that former President Donald Trump shared nuclear secrets with an Australian.
In addition, according to sources who spoke to CBS News, Special Counsel Jack Smith has not filed any charges related to such allegations.
“Sources tell CBS News there is no indication former President Trump shared sensitive records with an Australian billionaire + no charges have been filed by the Special Counsel through their alleged discussion about US Nuclear subs was investigated,” CBS’s Catherine Herridge posted on X, formerly Twitter, Saturday.
Her post came after CBS News reported on Friday that Trump allegedly talked about sensitive information regarding U.S. Navy nuclear submarines with Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt.
The report said that Pratt has been named as a potential witness in Smith’s classified documents case against Trump, sources confirmed. Pratt has not been accused of wrongdoing; Trump has called reports regarding his alleged conversations with Pratt “false and ridiculous.”
“I will often state that we make the best Submarines and Military Equipment anywhere in the World — A pretty well-known fact,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. “These fake stories are put out by corrupt prosecutors trying to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024.”
Meanwhile, the federal judge in Florida presiding over the case against Trump involving classified documents has temporarily halted all litigation concerning materials attached to Trump’s indictment while she considers postponing the trial.
On Friday, Trump appointee and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon filed an electronic order granting the former president’s defense team’s request to delay the trial until after the 2024 election. On May 20th, the trial will begin, Yahoo News reported.
After discovering classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed 40 felony charges against Trump, including 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information. He has entered a not-guilty plea on all counts.
In her order, Cannon addresses several upcoming October deadlines for Trump and his legal team to review how they plan to handle the classified materials at the heart of the case. Special Counsel Jack Smith asked for a hearing to be scheduled under CIPA to determine which classified materials could be used and released to the public during the trial.
Trump’s lawyers claimed in a motion filed last week that the defense team would not be ready for trial on the current schedule because of delays in obtaining access to classified records cited in Smith’s indictment.
Also last week, federal prosecutors acknowledged that the case had taken “a slightly longer than anticipated timeframe” and indicated their support for a brief extension. The pre-trial schedule was strongly opposed by Smith’s office.
Smith is not happy with a delay in his classified documents case.
The prosecutor said in a motion that Trump’s request “threatens to upend the entire schedule…and that amounts to a motion to postpone the trial until May 20, 2024.”
Smith was responding to Trump’s legal team’s claim that pre-trial hearing deadlines should be extended so that they could deal with legal issues that had arisen, such as an application for a protective order relating to Trump’s comments about witnesses and jurors.
Trump is accused of illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Smith stated that, while he was open to a brief delay, Trump was asking for too much time.
“Instead, defendants argue for a schedule that would delay proceedings by over three months,” the motion stated.
Smith said that Trump’s arguments “overstate the complexity of anticipated pre-trial discovery litigation, and are meritless in any event. The defendants already have more than sufficient discovery to provide the Court with a description of the type of information they consider relevant and helpful. The defendants’ motion can and should be denied on this ground alone.”
