Trump to Exclude Evidence Seized from Florida Home in Documents Case
Donald Trump’s lawyers are set to ask a US judge on Tuesday to bar prosecutors from using evidence critical to the criminal case accusing the former US president of illegally holding onto classified information after leaving office.
Lawyers for Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, are expected to urge Florida-based US District Judge Aileen Cannon to suppress evidence seized during an FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and social club in August 2022 and gathered from his one-time lawyer.
The evidence is foundational to the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, and Trump faces legal hurdles in excluding it. Trump’s lawyers have argued that the Mar-a-Lago search warrant violated the US Constitution because it gave agents overly broad authority to comb the property to seize potential evidence. They also argue that prosecutors did not inform the judge who approved the warrant of information helpful to Trump’s defense.
The search turned up about 100 classified documents stashed on the property, leading to charges that Trump retained sensitive national security information when he left the White House in 2021.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 criminal counts and his lawyers have mounted a flurry of legal challenges that have indefinitely delayed a trial in the case. Prosecutors have defended the court-approved search as appropriate and necessary. The search came after prosecutors learned that Trump had deliberately thwarted a legal demand to return any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, according to the indictment.
Trump’s lawyers are also expected to ask Cannon to quash evidence collected from Trump’s former attorney Evan Corcoran, who was compelled to testify in the investigation.
That portion of the hearing will take place out of public view because it involves confidential information about grand jury proceedings and Trump’s conversations with his legal team.
