WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Donald Trump have asked the judge overseeing the classified documents case against him to prevent prosecutors from using as evidence the boxes of documents that FBI agents seized during a search of Trump’s property nearly two years ago the former president in Florida, according to a motion announced Tuesday.
Defense attorneys alleged in the motion that the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida was unconstitutional and “illegal” and that the FBI affidavit filed in justification of it was tainted by misrepresentations.
Prosecutors from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office, which brought the case, rejected each of these allegations and defended the investigative approach as “measured” and “graduated.” They said the search warrant was obtained after investigators obtained surveillance video that showed it was a concerted effort to hide the boxes of classified documents inside the property.
“The warrant was supported by a detailed affidavit establishing probable cause and omitting any material information. And the warrant provided ample guidance to the FBI agents who conducted the search. Trump sees no plausible basis for suppressing the fruits of that quest,” prosecutors wrote.
The defense’s request was filed in February but was made public Tuesday, along with hundreds of pages of investigation documents filed with the Florida case.
That includes a previously sealed opinion last year from the then-chief judge of the federal court in Washington, which said that months after the FBI’s investigation into Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s lawyers turned over four additional documents with classification marks that found in Trump’s bedroom.
That March 2023 opinion from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ordered a former lead attorney for Trump in the case to comply with a grand jury subpoena and turn over materials to investigators, rejecting defense arguments that their cooperation was prohibited by attorney-client privilege, concluding that prosecutors had made a “prima facie case” showing that Trump committed a crime.
In the newly released motion, Trump’s defense team asked the Florida judge overseeing the case, Aileen Cannon, to suppress audio recordings that the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, made of conversations with Trump. Prosecutors responded that there is no basis to exclude that evidence from the case.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys are due back in court on Wednesday for the first time since Cannon indefinitely postponed the former president’s trial earlier this month. The case was scheduled to go to trial on May 20, but Cannon cited numerous issues she has yet to resolve as a basis for canceling the trial date.
On Wednesday, Cannon was scheduled to hear arguments on a request by Trump to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that it fails to clearly articulate a crime and instead amounts to “a personal and political attack on President Trump” with a “litany of uncharged grievances for both public and media consumption.”
The motion is one of several filed by Trump’s lawyers to dismiss the case, some of which have already been dismissed.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
