(RightWing.org) – Former president Donald Trump has launched a new bid to reduce his legal problems. His litigation team is trying to have the federal classified documents case against him dismissed. Trump’s lawyers say the case is based on an unconstitutional search of his Mar-A-Lago home, as well as other violations of his rights.
On May 21, Trump’s attorneys filed several separate motions to dismiss his prosecution, in the US District Court for Florida’s southern district on 32 counts of mishandling classified documents and eight counts of making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice. The charges relate to government documents that were found during a January 2022 search of Mar-A-Lago.
That search is the center of the government’s case against Trump, but it’s also the target for his legal team. In the new filings, Trump’s lawyers say the warrant for the search was “executed in an egregious fashion and in bad faith,” and there was no justification for private rooms — including the bedrooms of former First Lady Melania Trump and the ex-president’s youngest son Barron Trump — to be included in the search. The filings also reveal that the FBI agents who ransacked Mar-A-Lago were authorized to use lethal force.
According to one filing, the collaboration between the Justice Department, FBI, National Archives and Records Administration, and the Biden administration violated Trump’s rights under the due process clause of the Fifth and 14th Amendments. His lawyers say this means the property seized during the search — boxes of classified documents — are inadmissible as evidence against him.
The government has already responded to the motions, filing an objection with the court later the same day. The Justice Department claims the search warrant was “valid and lawful,” and argues that Trump had deliberately tried to avoid complying with a subpoena for all classified documents in his possession. Meanwhile, Judge Aileen Cannon has indefinitely delayed the start of the trial, leaving the lawyers to argue about procedure.
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