The Florida federal judge overseeing former US President Donald Trump’s classified documents case denied Thursday an effort by the former president to dismiss the case based on the Presidential Records Act (PRA). Trump argued that the classified documents he allegedly retained following the end of his presidency were declassified under the PRA. However, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Trump’s arguments.
Trump had sought to dismiss counts 1 through 32 of the 40 criminal charges currently pending against him in the classified documents case. Those 32 counts all center around Trump’s alleged willful retention of national defense information. Separately, Trump also sought to dismiss the remaining eight charges against him.
Since Trump brought this motion before trial, Cannon was forced to accept the assertions contained in the original and superseding indictment against Trump to be true. Speaking to this, Cannon said:
[T]he Superseding Indictment specifies the nature of the accusations against Defendant Trump in a lengthy speaking indictment with embedded excerpts from investigative interviews, photographs, and other content. For these reasons, accepting the allegations…as true, the [PRA] does not provide a pre-trial basis to dismiss [the charges].
Cannon denied Trump’s motion to dismiss, finding that “the statutory language and essential elements of the charge[s]” track with the information contained within the indictments against the former president. Cannon found that the 32 counts Trump sought to dismiss under the PRA made no reference to the statute, “nor [did] they rely on that statute for purposes of stating an offense.”
Regarding the remaining three charges, Cannon similarly found that the charges follow “the applicable statutory language and essential elements of the charged crimes.”
Trump’s motion to dismiss was based upon his assertion that, prior to leaving office, he declassified the documents he took from the White House to his private Mar-a-Lago, Florida residence. Trump continues to claim that he had the executive authority to do so under the PRA, writing on Truth Social, “I DID NOTHING WRONG.” However, the prosecution—led by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith—continues to push back against that claim.
This is one of the four criminal cases the former president currently faces. The 40 criminal charges in this case against Trump stem from claims that the former president wrongfully took classified government documents with him when he departed the White House on January 20, 2021. These documents included classified descriptions and analyses of US and foreign allies’ defense and weapons capabilities, nuclear information, potential US vulnerabilities and retaliation plans. The indictment alleges that Trump was not authorized to possess or retain these classified documents after his tenure as US president came to an end on January 20, 2021. And yet, the documents were discovered by the FBI during an August 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, private residence.
Two other individuals—Trump aide Waltine Nauta and Trump property manager Carlos De Oliveira—also face criminal charges for their roles in the case. All three have entered not-guilty pleas.
