Court papers filed by his lawyers, formally a request for discovery evidence, sounded at times more like political talking points.

Court papers filed by his lawyers, formally a request for discovery evidence, sounded at times more like political talking points.

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump said in court papers filed on Tuesday night that they intended to place accusations that the intelligence community was biased against Mr. Trump at the heart of their defense against charges accusing him of illegally holding onto dozens of highly sensitive classified documents after he left office.

The lawyers also indicated that they were planning to defend Mr. Trump by seeking to prove that the investigation of the case was “politically motivated and biased.”

The court papers, filed in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., gave the clearest picture yet of the scorched earth legal strategy that Mr. Trump is apparently planning to use in fighting the classified documents indictment handed up over the summer.

While the 68-page filing was formally a request by Mr. Trump’s lawyers to the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, to provide them with reams of additional information that they believe can help them fight the charges, it often read more like a list of political talking points than a brief of legal arguments.

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  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
    27·
    10 months ago

    Yeah they were biased. He got handled with kid gloves because he was a former president. He deliberately took all of this stuff from the white house, even though he knew he wasn’t allowed to and that it was illegal. He was given years, multiple warnings, and many opportunities to comply with the law. He chose to lie to the national archives and the fbi repeatedly, continued to hide highly classified documents he stole in his damn bathroom at a beach resort. He even conspired with his staff to try and hide them from the fbi. And when the fbi one last time told him we know you have more, literally have your staff on video moving it around, give it up, he still lied! The national archives and fbi did everything possible to avoid having to seize it all back with a search warrant.

    If anyone belongs in jail for mishandling classified documents, it’s Trump. We probably don’t even know the worst of what he had stuffed away at Mar-a-Lago. The worst stuff doesn’t get disclosed to the court because they just can’t risk it leaking out even with court procedures to try and protect classified info.