A Florida federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump rejected his request — for now, at least — to delay the scheduled May 20 start of his criminal trial for keeping classified government documents after he exited the White House.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case, arguing that he had the right to take whatever he wanted from the White House.
On Friday, Trump went a step further and acknowledged that "various people" in and around the club saw the "papers and boxes" that he took with him, which prosecutors say contained 1,545 pages of classified material.
"Of course they did! They may have been the boxes etc. that were openly and plainly brought from the White House, as is my right under the Presidential Records Act," Trump posted on social media.
Under the Presidential Records Act, which became law in 1978, "any records created or received by the President as part of his constitutional, statutory, or ceremonial duties are the property of the United States government and will be managed by NARA at the end of the administration," the National Archives notes on its website.
"Under the PRA, the official records of the President and his staff are owned by the United States, not by the President," the site says. The Archives is required under the law to take custody of these records when a president, including Trump, leaves office.
Trump is charged in the case with retaining classified government documents after his presidency ended in January 2021 and taking steps with employees of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to prevent government officials from recovering them.
In a ruling Friday, Judge Aileen Cannon said she would reconsider her decision next spring, after a hearing in the case March 1. That is just three days before Trump's trial in another federal criminal case is scheduled to begin in Washington, D.C., related to the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Squirrel_Chucks on November 10th, 2023 at 20:33 UTC »
It's actually not. Notice how his lawyers don't even make that case.
But his followers will believe him without ever taking the step of looking it up for themselves.
Someone here on Reddit argued with me about this and said that Biden is in more trouble than Trump over documents. This, he said, is because of documents found in his home from the Obama years. The Presidential Records Act doesn't cover Vice Presidents, he said.
I told him that was incorrect, and when I showed him the actual text of the law his reply was to delete his comments from our thread
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Some horses would rather kick themselves in the nuts, drink their own piss, and gallop toward a cactus patch while yelling "dOnT tELL mE wHaT tO dO!!"
Bananners_in_mouth on November 10th, 2023 at 20:23 UTC »
Military prison is full of people who mishandled classified documents. The fact that classified documents were just left out in the open for random people (and spies) to stumble on is insanity.
Lock. Him. Up.
jewelandparsons on November 10th, 2023 at 20:15 UTC »
Another confession: