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Federal prosecutors have submitted a top secret court motion in an attempt to stop Donald Trump introducing classified documents into his election tampering trial.
Trump's lawyers want to use the classified documents in court to show that Trump was trying to save the 2020 election from foreign interference, in contrast with prosecution claims that he was trying to illegally interfere in the election.
Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and his team fear that the introduction of classified documents will delay the Washington D.C trial, as it has already delayed Trump's other federal trial in Florida.
One of Smith's team, Thomas P. Windom, notified Washington D.C.-based judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday that prosecutors have submitted their motion to a Classified Information Security Officer, who then stores it until the judge is ready to review it.
Under federal rules, all motions that reference classified documents have to be submitted to a Classified Information Security Officer to ensure their secrecy.
The prosecution court filing, the details of which are not viewable by the general public, is entitled "Government's Motion to Strike Defendant's CIPA Section 5 Notice".
Under Section 5 of the Classified Information Procedures Act, a defendant who "reasonably intends to disclose classified information" must "provide timely pretrial written notice of his intention to the Court and the Government."
Section 5(a) requires that such notice "include a brief description of the classified information" and must be "particularized and specific", according to a Justice Department synopsis of the CIPA.
On October 26, Trump's lawyers submitted notice to Chutkan that Trump wishes to obtain "classified information at trial relating to foreign influence activities that impacted the 2016 and 2020 elections, as well as efforts by his administration to combat those activities."
"President Trump will also present classified information relating to the biased and politicized nature of the intelligence assessments that he and others rejected during the events in question," their submission reads.
It also states that his legal team has already alerted the Classified Information Security Officer to inform them that Trump will need classified documents at trial.
His legal team's submission states that, between the classified information on foreign interference and the classified information on biased intelligence reports, "this evidence will undercut central theories of the prosecution and establish that President Trump acted at all times in good faith and on the belief that he was doing what he had been elected to do."
The submission noted that prosecutor Jack Smith had argued in legal submissions earlier in October that "the classified discovery issues" in this case are "limited," "tangential," "narrow," and "incidental" because "the charges...do not rely on classified materials."
"The Indictment in this case adopts classified assessments by the Intelligence Community and others that minimized, and at times ignored, efforts by foreign actors to influence and interfere with the 2020 election," Trump's lawyers wrote.
The former president was indicted on four counts in August for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
The submissions by Trump's attorneys John F. Lauro and Todd Blanche came on the same day that Smith's team was complaining, in a separate federal case, that Trump's legal team took 11 days to begin reviewing classified material allegedly found at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump has pleaded not guilty before a Florida federal court to hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
In that Florida submission, Smith's team complained that Trump's lawyers are accusing prosecutors of not producing the classified documents fast enough while delaying their inspection of those same documents at a specially fitted secure room in Miami.
"Despite defendant Trump's accusations, defense counsel was hardly in a rush to review the Government's latest production of classified discovery," he wrote in a document submitted to federal judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday.
Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race. Several legal commentators claim he is trying to delay his criminal trials so that he can exonerate himself if elected president again.
Preet Bharara, a former federal prosecutor, said that Trump likely has three options to avoid his two federal trials if elected next year: pardoning himself, appointing a favorable attorney general, or claiming federal immunity.
Speaking on his Spotify podcast Stay Tuned With Preet earlier this month, Bharara claimed that Trump is trying to delay his trials until after the presidential election and, if elected, try to escape the charges.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more