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Jack Smith criticizes Trump documents judge's instructions as 'fundamentally flawed'
Just The News ^ | April 3, 2024 12:21pm | Madeleine Hubbard

Posted on 04/03/2024 10:45:37 AM PDT by Red Badger

Special counsel Jack Smith criticized the federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's classified documents trial as relying on a "fundamentally flawed legal premise" that "would distort the trial," when she ordered both parties to submit jury instructions.

Smith's sharp response Tuesday comes after Florida-based U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Canon last month asked attorneys to submit instructions based on two scenarios. In the first one, the jury would consider whether records Trump allegedly possesses are personal or presidential under the Presidential Records Act. The second scenario, Canon wrote, would assume that "the Presidential Records Act gives the president the sole authority to categorize records as personal or presidential during their time in office," which would make the case significantly more difficult to prosecute.

While Trump's attorneys approved of Canon's proposal, Smith's office argued that since Trump is being charged under the Espionage Act, which bans national difference documents from being willfully retained, the distinction between personal and presidential records should not apply.

The Presidential Records Act "should not play any role at trial at all," prosecutors said.

Trump has relied on the law in his defense.

"Both of the Court’s scenarios are fundamentally flawed and any jury instructions that reflect those scenarios would be error," Smith's office also wrote.

Despite their disagreement, prosecutors still proposed jury instructions for both scenarios and included the definitions used in the Presidential Records Act.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government; Politics/Elections
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Great strategy there, Jack! Criticize the judge and tell her she's an ignoramus!..............
1 posted on 04/03/2024 10:45:37 AM PDT by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger

Gag order to be issued in 3...2.. Oh wait, this is the democrat DOJ so they can say what they want about anyone.


2 posted on 04/03/2024 10:48:14 AM PDT by shotgun
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To: Red Badger

The illegally appointed Jack Smith.


3 posted on 04/03/2024 10:50:38 AM PDT by sauropod (Ne supra crepidam.)
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To: Red Badger

Smith is a deep-state worm.

His argument is: the intel-bureaucratic control over “classification” overrides all Presidential rights and prerogatives or any elected official. Presidential “personal” documents are one thing, but our “classifications” trump everything else.

F*** him and his CIA/Globalist masters.


4 posted on 04/03/2024 10:52:48 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: All

Congress heard Biden had Top secret classified documents in 7 separate locations.........
Some were 40 years old from his days as VP and Senator
Biden was never authorized by law to have or keep any classified documents
CitizenFreePress ^ | March 12, 2024 | Staff
Posted on 3/12/2024, 12:20:20 PM by Red Badger

VIDEO OF TESTIMONY AT FR LINK....................

NOTE Under “the Presidential Records Act” the president has the sole authority to categorize records as personal or presidential during their time in the office of the presidency.


Special Counsel Robert Hur: Biden White House Pressured Me To Change My Report Findings
The Federalist ^ | 03/18/2024 | Shawn Fleetwood
Posted on 3/18/2024, 9:47:23 AM by SeekAndFind

Special counsel Robert Hur testified on Tuesday that the White House attempted to pressure him into changing aspects of his report on President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.

The revelation came during Hur’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, in which Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., probed the special counsel head about a Feb. 5 letter the White House Counsel sent to Hur days before his report became public. When Tiffany asked whether the White House requested he “change [the report’s] references to the president’s poor memory,” Hur confirmed the administration did, in fact, make such a request.

“There was a request, yes,” Hur said, contradicting claims issued earlier in the hearing by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who asserted Biden did not “seek to redact a single word of Mr. Hur’s report.”

Hur confirmed this during a prior exchange with committee chair and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

“Did the White House try to weigh in with your investigation on elements of that report and frankly try to get that report changed,” Jordan asked, to which Hur replied, “They did request certain edits and changes to the draft report.”

As The Federalist’s Tristan Justice reported, Hur concluded “that no criminal charges are warranted” in his investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified materials despite his team finding records “related to foreign policy in Afghanistan and handwritten notes ‘implicating sensitive intelligence.’” Federal authorities justified their refusal to charge Biden because the president “would likely present himself to the jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt,” prosecutors wrote. “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

During his Tuesday testimony, Hur further confirmed that the White House submitted a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland days after sending a communique to Hur, objecting to the special counsel report’s analysis of Biden’s mental decline. Hur’s team noted in its report how Biden could not recall basic facts during his interview with investigators, such as “when he was vice president” or when his son, Beau, died.

Joe Biden’s White House pressured Robert Hur to change aspects of his report surrounding the President’s memory.

This is a major scandal.

📽️ : @RepTiffany pic.twitter.com/kXhg1HuiJq— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) March 12, 2024

The White House’s pressure campaign on Hur to alter his report before its release to the public appears to fall within the “obstruction of justice” charge Democrats accused former President Trump of committing, as it relates to Robert Mueller’s baseless investigation into whether the Republican president colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. Of course, the baseless claim that Trump obstructed Mueller’s investigation didn’t stop Democrats from relentlessly accusing the former president of obstruction or then-Attorney General Bill Barr of stopping such charges from being filed.


5 posted on 04/03/2024 10:53:22 AM PDT by Liz (This then is how we should pray: Our Father wIho art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. )
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To: Red Badger

Looks like Jackie is having himself a lil hissy fit cause he knows he’s losing


6 posted on 04/03/2024 10:55:01 AM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: Red Badger

Jack Smith has shown he is the last person to point out whether another’s decisions might show bias.


7 posted on 04/03/2024 10:55:34 AM PDT by lastchance (Cognovit Dominus qui sunt eius.)
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To: Red Badger

“Smith’s office argued that since Trump is being charged under the Espionage Act,”

I still believe (and I am not alone in this) that act does not apply to ex Presidents or Presidents.


8 posted on 04/03/2024 10:56:59 AM PDT by lastchance (Cognovit Dominus qui sunt eius.)
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To: Red Badger

Time for the judge to issue a gag order on Jack Smith and his team.


9 posted on 04/03/2024 10:57:19 AM PDT by jacknhoo (Luke 12:51; Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation.)
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To: Red Badger

Interesting and positive take here - https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1775493494905192626.html


10 posted on 04/03/2024 10:57:21 AM PDT by Nicojones
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To: Red Badger

He is not self aware enough to know his entire case is fundamentally flawed.


11 posted on 04/03/2024 10:58:28 AM PDT by MrRelevant
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To: PGR88

His argument is basically “The bureaucracy controls the President. The President does not control the bureaucracy.”............


12 posted on 04/03/2024 11:03:15 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

“which bans national difference documents from being willfully retained, the distinction between personal and presidential records should not apply”

The idiot software that wrote this meant to say “national defense documents” but the point is this: the whole case is nothing more then a niggling dispute over documents that NARA has never claimed in 50 years since Nixon.

It’s a minor negotiation between the President and one of his agencies. A textbook case of making a mountain out of a molehill.

Which is of course how totalitarian states operate.


13 posted on 04/03/2024 11:04:09 AM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: Red Badger

how to win friends and influence people - NOT!


14 posted on 04/03/2024 11:17:01 AM PDT by avital2 ("n)
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To: Red Badger

So, by Jack Smith’s argument, Biden is in for A LOT of trouble, right???


15 posted on 04/03/2024 11:23:02 AM PDT by Mr. K (No consequence of repealing Obamacare is worse than Obamacare)
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To: Red Badger
Jack Smith sees where this is headed so he is trying to politicize the impending negative rulings against his sham prosecutions.
16 posted on 04/03/2024 11:37:49 AM PDT by rdcbn1
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To: Mr. K

From your post...
:)


17 posted on 04/03/2024 12:02:56 PM PDT by milagro (There is no peace in appeasement! There)
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To: Red Badger

Bill Barr et al have argued that the laws changed after Nixon because he was going to destroy documents.

These documents supposedly belong to the people.

But they pretend that only one copy exists or can exist.

So, they are just fighting to keep these documents from Trump.

It’s either because they contain incriminating evidence against them, or it is merely entrapment.


18 posted on 04/03/2024 12:06:05 PM PDT by unlearner (I, Robot: I think I finally understand why Dr. Lanning created me... ;-)
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To: Red Badger

I just don’t understand this bull$hit, I guess.
DJT charged under the Espionage Act as an end-around to avoid the ugliness of the Presidential Records Act, etc.
But...SloJo gets a pass on having classified documents in his damn garage? Because he’s old?

We are so far down the rabbit hole. Sad it is, watching America being killed by these communists.


19 posted on 04/03/2024 12:14:22 PM PDT by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. The Dhimmicraps are ALL Traitors. All of them.)
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To: unlearner

Read a while back that they are after only one particular ‘notebook’ that they did not find at Mar-A-Lago.

This notebook supposedly has what you referred to as “incriminating evidence against them” and they are desperate to get it back...................


20 posted on 04/03/2024 12:14:31 PM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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