Double whammy for Donald Trump as 2 judges reject calls to dismiss charges
- Judge Aileen Cannon rejected the ex-president’s argument in his classified documents case that the files were his personal records, not government property
- In the Georgia election interference case, Judge Scott McAfee found Trump’s statements were not protected by the First Amendment
Donald Trump suffered a pair of legal setbacks on Thursday as judges spurned his calls to dismiss criminal charges over the former US president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss in Georgia and his keeping classified records after leaving office.
Separately, one of the Republican presidential candidate’s allies, former Justice Department official lawyer Jeffrey Clark, faced the risk of disbarment after a Washington panel found he violated some ethics rules in his attempts to enlist the agency to help overturn Trump’s loss.
Those cases represent just some of the legal entanglements facing Trump, who has been criminally charged in four cases as he challenges Democratic US President Joe Biden in the November 5 election, with the first-ever trial of a sitting or former US president due to get under way in New York on April 15.
Florida-based US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday rejected Trump’s argument that the case accusing him of illegally holding onto classified documents should be thrown out on the basis of his argument that they were his personal records rather than government property.
Trump had argued that his retention of highly sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office in 2021 was authorised under a US law that lets former presidents keep personal records unrelated to their official responsibilities.