In a possible blow to Donald Trump’s effort to disqualify evidence in his classified documents case, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon signaled Tuesday that Donald Trump’s legal team had not convinced her FBI agents offered false information to justify searching Mar-a-Lago, the Washington Post reports. Trump’s attorneys had asked Cannon to grant what is known as a Franks hearing -- a chance to show that the government intentionally misled a magistrate judge when seeking a warrant to search for classified material at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and private club.
Typically, the bar for allowing such a hearing is high. But if Cannon agreed to hold a Franks hearing, and ruled in the defense’s favor after that hearing, she could toss the evidence that investigators collected when they executed the search warrant — the bulk of the evidence in the classified documents case. Cannon did not issue rulings from the bench; written decisions could come at any time. Trump’s defense lawyers argued, among other things, that Justice Department officials should have written on the affidavit that sitting presidents are unique because they do not require security clearances to view sensitive government information. In response, Cannon was skeptical, noting that the search was a year after Trump left office. “He is post-presidency,” she told Trump lawyer Emil Bove.