'Game Over' for Jack Smith? Attorney Says Trump Can File One Motion That Would Change Everything
One legal weapon could smash the federal charges against former President Donald Trump into insignificant pieces of legal debris, according to one veteran of legal battles.
Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell said that the Presidential Records Act is a powerful tool in Trump’s fight against charges lodged against him by special prosecutor Jack Smith that Trump mishandled classified documents, according to Fox News.
Terrell made his comments on the Fox News show “Life, Liberty & Levin.” The show is scheduled to air at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday.
Terrell said invoking the act, created in 1978 and amended in the 1990s, should lead to an “outright dismissal of these frivolous charges against Donald J. Trump.”
The Presidential Records Act allows a president to have custody and management of that president’s records during his time in office, according to KCRA-TV. The records move to the custody of the Archivist of the United States when a president leaves office.
The act exonerates Trump, Terrell said.
“President Trump had the absolute right to declassify any and all documents in his custody, control and possession. There has been no response to that by the prosecution, Terrell said, according to Fox. “I’ll tell you why: Because they don’t have one.”
He said invoking the act is the equivalent of “game over.”
“That is, to me, the most important first motion President Trump’s legal team could file,” he said.
Terrell said that the goal of the prosecution is to block Trump’s path to the White House.
“The leading Republican candidate, in my opinion, the next president of this country, is trying to be derailed by the prosecution, by Joe Biden, by Merrick Garland, by Christopher Wray and the Democratic machine… and the left-wing media,” he said.
Last week, Trump’s lawyers sought to push back the trial on the charges until after the 2024 presidential election, according to Politico.
“Proceeding to trial during the pendency of a Presidential election cycle wherein opposing candidates are effectively (if not literally) directly adverse to one another in this action will create extraordinary challenges in the jury selection process and limit the Defendants’ ability to secure a fair and impartial adjudication,” attorneys for Trump and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, wrote in a filing.
Prosecutors pushed back on that argument, according to The Associated Press.
“Our jury system relies on the Court’s authority to craft a thorough and effective jury selection process, and on prospective jurors’ ability and willingness to decide cases based on the evidence presented to them, guided by legal instructions from the Court,” the Justice Department wrote in its legal response, according to the AP.
“To be sure, the Government readily acknowledges that jury selection here may merit additional protocols (such as a questionnaire) and may be more time-consuming than in other cases, but those are reasons to start the process sooner rather than later.”
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