Trump asks judge to delay his classified docs case following Supreme Court immunity ruling
Trump asked her to determine if his alleged conduct is "official or unofficial."
Following the Supreme Court's landmark decision on presidential immunity, former President Donald Trump's lawyers on Friday asked the judge overseeing his classified documents case to delay the proceedings and reconsider two motions to dismiss the case in light of this week's immunity ruling.
Trump's lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to pause all the proceedings in the documents case -- other than a pending ruling regarding the special counsel's request for a gag order -- so that she can determine whether Trump's alleged conduct in the case is "official or unofficial."
In a blockbuster decision Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump is entitled to presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts taken while in office.
Trump's lawyers argued that the Supreme Court's ruling "guts the [special counsel's] position that President Trump has 'no immunity' and further demonstrates the politically-motivated nature of their contention that the motion is 'frivolous.'"
Defense lawyers wrote that they plan to file a separate motion about the implications of the immunity decision, including limits on evidence related to official acts that prosecutors could be precluded from using at trial.
Trump's attorneys also asked to renew another motion claiming that special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed, and asked Cannon to delay the case until those motions are resolved.
"The Court should resolve the threshold questions identified in Trump relating to Presidential immunity and the Appointments Clause, as well as the related issues presented in the Appropriations Clause motion, prior to addressing the other numerous problems with this case," Trump's lawyers wrote.
The move from Trump's lawyers marks the second of the former president's criminal cases to be likely impacted by the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity. Earlier this week, Trump's lawyers asked a New York judge to throw out the former president's conviction for falsifying business records by arguing the jury saw evidence that would have been protected by presidential immunity.
In Friday's filing, Trump's lawyers also emphasized a concurring decision from Justice Clarence Thomas that cast doubt on the legitimacy of Smith's appointment -- an argument that Cannon considered during a two-day hearing last month.
"If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people," Thomas wrote. "The lower courts should thus answer these essential questions concerning the Special Counsel's appointment before proceeding."
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government's efforts to get the documents back. Trump has denied all charges.
Lawyers for Smith and the former president are scheduled to return to Fort Pierce, Florida, on July 22 for a status conference in the documents case.
In separate filings in the case Friday, attorneys continued to argue over a proposed gag order Smith requested to prohibit the former president from making statements that endanger law enforcement.
Over the last month, Judge Cannon has been considering a request from Smith to modify Trump's conditions of release to prohibit him from making statements that pose a "significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger" to the law enforcement agents involved in the case.
In Friday's filing, lawyers with the special counsel's office wrote that the "overwhelming evidence" demonstrates that Trump's attacks on public servants result in a "predictable torrent of threats of retribution and violence." Prosecutors argued that Trump, by making public comments about the FBI agents involved in the 2022 search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, "exposed those agents to the very sorts of threats and harassment that has been visited on his other targets."
"Over the past year, Trump has repeatedly targeted public servants with vitriolic attacks, resulting in a torrent of death threats, doxing, swatting, and other forms of harassment," the filing said. "When he recently decided to falsely accuse the law enforcement agents involved in this case with taking part in a plan to kill him and his family, he knowingly exposed them to similar treatment."
Trump's lawyers responded by defending the former president's statements about the search as "constitutionally-protected views," arguing that the Smith has failed to demonstrate that Trump's speech has led to any threats.
"Despite the vast resources and monitoring technology available to the Office and the FBI, and notwithstanding what the Office refers to as 'the widespread prevalence of doxing,' they have not pointed to a single threat to a participant in the Mar-a-Lago raid based on President Trump's wholly appropriate political speech in May 2024," defense lawyers wrote in Friday's filing. "That is no surprise, of course, as the Office has greatly exaggerated the import of President Trump's political opinions on that topic, and the names of the search participants are sealed."
In their filing, Trump's lawyers continued to describe the gag order as a politically motivated effort to limit Trump's speech during the election.
"The Office is either oblivious to or, as we believe, culpably reckless regarding, the egregious censorship that they are asking the Court to enforce against the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election," the filing said.
During a hearing on the requested gag order last month, Judge Cannon expressed skepticism about the request to limit Trump's statements about the August 2022 search, questioning prosecutors about the constitutionality of the request and the connection between Trump's statements and the actions of his supporters.
Cannon, who last week allowed the lawyers in the case to file additional papers on the requested gag order, is expected to issue a ruling in the coming weeks.