Prosecutors from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office said in new filings yesterday that Trump’s latest attempt to dismiss the classified documents lawsuit should be dismissed without holding a hearing on the matter.
The filing included several new photos of boxes seized during a search of Mar-a-Lago in 2022, including a photo taken by Walt Nauta of the boxes spilling out in a storage room, examples of classified documents photographed next to the boxes, and a photo of a leather-bound box recovered from a closet in Trump’s office.
The motion comes in response to Trump’s recent attempt to have the lawsuit dropped, with his lawyers arguing that the FBI failed to properly maintain the exact order of materials in the boxes it seized, destroying potentially exculpatory evidence.
If the documents had been buried in the box or stored next to other items from before Trump left office, Trump’s lawyers argued, that would support their claim that Trump didn’t know the documents were in the box and did not “knowingly” keep them there.
But prosecutors said in filings last night that argument doesn’t hold up because Trump was personally involved in packing the boxes and had his hands on them multiple times since leaving the White House.
