Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 7, 2023.
Scott Morgan | Reuters
Federal prosecutors in a latest court filing blasted a request by Donald Trump to be allowed to debate classified information for his criminal case in Florida at home along with his defense attorneys, outside of a specially secured room.
Prosecutors are also opposing a request by one among the previous president’s co-defendants within the case, valet Walt Nauta, for access to classified information, versus only his attorneys, noting that Nauta is barely charged with an effort to hide boxes containing the data.
The filing Thursday got here on the identical day that prosecutors filed several latest criminal charges in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against Trump and Nauta, accusing them of an effort to delete video surveillance footage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. The footage shows boxes of classified records being moved across the club at the identical time federal officials were looking for to recuperate them.
A 3rd defendant was also added to the case, Mar-a-Lago maintenance chief Carlos de Oliveira, who allegedly played a task within the deletion effort
Prosecutors of their filing called Trump’s request to be allowed to debate classified information along with his lawyers at Mar-a-Lago “extraordinary,” and “particularly striking” given the proven fact that that is identical home where he’s charged with retaining classified documents in scores of boxes after leaving office.
“The federal government will not be aware of any case wherein a defendant has been permitted to debate classified information in a non-public residence, and such exceptional treatment wouldn’t be consistent with the law,” prosecutors for Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith wrote.
“Defendant Trump’s personal residences and offices aren’t lawful locations for the discussion of classified information, any greater than they might be for any private citizen,” prosecutors wrote.
The filing noted that because the end of Trump’s presidency in January 2021, neither Mar-a-Lago nor his summer residence at his Bedminster, Latest Jersey, club have been authorized locations to store, possess or discuss classified information.
One among the brand new charges Thursday against Trump pertains to him showing a highly classified document a few U.S. military plan of attack on Iran to people without security clearances at Bedminster in July 2021.
Prosecutors are proposing that Judge Aileen Cannon issue a protective order that may require Trump and his lawyers only to debate classified information with one another with a so-called SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility, which is designed to forestall people not authorized to listen to the data from doing so.
Of their argument against Nauta being allowed to debate such information in any respect with lawyers, prosecutors wrote that “the contents of the classified documents contained within the boxes, and the national defense information that they contain, aren’t material to proving or defending against those charges” pending against him.
