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Prosecutor Jack Smith has rejected Donald Trump's claim that the classified documents case against him should be dropped because President Joe Biden also held on to top secret files.
Smith also rejected a claim that his prosecution of Donald Trump is "vindictive."
Smith was replying to lawyers for Trump and his two co-accused, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who complained in writing to Judge Aileen Cannon on Friday that the prosecution is in marked contrast to the treatment of Biden.
Trump's lawyers are seeking to end the case against Trump and his co-accused, based on Special Counsel Robert Hur's report on Thursday, which found that Biden also held on to classified documents after leaving office.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 federal charges of retaining classified materials and then obstructing federal attempts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The frontrunner in the GOP primary denies all wrongdoing, and has repeatedly said that the charges are part of a politically motivated witch hunt to stop him winning the 2024 election.
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump's attorney on Monday.
In his filing on Monday, Smith claimed that Trump and his co-accused are now trying to raise the Hur report without having ever done so before, along with other claims that Hillary and Bill Clinton, Mike Pence and others also hoarded documents.
Smith wrote that Trump's filing on Friday "advances new factual claims that they should not be permitted to raise for the first time in a reply to which the Government has no opportunity to respond."
"Specifically, the defendants attempt to draw comparisons between defendant Trump's conduct and the conduct of other executive branch officials who were not prosecuted, including: President Joseph Biden, as described in the report released on February 8, 2024, by Special Counsel Robert Hur; Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Former Vice President Mike Pence; Former President Bill Clinton and Former FBI Director James Comey."
"The defendants advanced none of these legal or factual claims in their motion to compel, despite the fact that all but one of them were known to them before they filed their motion," Smith complained.
In their filing on Friday, Trump and his co-accused sought "judicial intervention to thwart ongoing discovery abuses by the Special Counsel's Office in connection with a case that should have never been brought and must ultimately be dismissed on the basis of, inter alia, selective and vindictive prosecution."
"Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report issued by Special Counsel Robert Hur, finding that President Biden has 'wilfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,' over the course of his decades-long career. President Biden will not be charged, and President Trump should not have been either," their filing states.
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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