A federal judge will hear arguments Thursday on whether to dismiss the classified documents prosecution of Donald Trump, with his attorneys asserting that the former president was entitled to keep the sensitive records with him when he left the White House and headed to Florida, the Associated Press reports. It was not clear when U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon might rule, but the outcome will determine whether the case proceeds or whether, as Trump’s lawyers hope, it is thrown out before ever reaching a jury — a rare action for a judge to take.
The dispute centers differing interpretations of the Presidential Records Act. Trump's team says the act gave him the authority to designate the documents as personal, allowing him to maintain possession of them after his presidency. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team asserts that the files Trump is charged with possessing are presidential records, not personal ones, and that the statute does not apply to classified and top-secret documents like those kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
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