Judge Refuses to Dismiss Trump Case Due to ‘Vagueness’

(USNewsMag.com) – The federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump over mishandling classified documents rejected the former president’s bid to throw the case out, which argued that the law on which the charges are based is too vague in regards to constitutionality.

In a two-page order on Thursday, March 14th, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected the former president’s bid to have his charges dismissed, stating that although many of the arguments presented by Trump’s legal team warrant “serious consideration,” it would be “premature” to dismiss the charges over vagueness.

The federal indictment filed against Trump in Florida last year in June has to do with classified documents the former president took after leaving the White House and stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He also faces charges in three other federal indictments related to the 2020 election. The special counsel overseeing the classified documents case, Jack Smith, is overseeing one of the other prosecutions accusing Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

The judge, whom Trump himself actually appointed while still in office, listened to over three hours of arguments by the former president and his team. Cannon said she was reluctant to dismiss the charges and that striking down the Espionage Act statute underpinning most of the charges would be an “extraordinary” action for the court to take. Unanswered questions about when the case would go to trial remained after the deliberations, which only looked at one of the motions.

Another motion remains pending. Trump’s team argues in that motion that the former president was allowed to retain the documents he had based on the Presidential Records Act, but Cannon also appears to be leaning toward dismissing that motion. She said that “it’s difficult to see” how that argument would be grounds for “dismissal of an indictment.” The prosecution argued that the records in question were not covered by the act because they were not personal records.

Trump, who was in attendance at the Thursday hearing, took to social media afterward to boast that a large crowd of supporters gathered outside the courthouse and reiterated that the legal attacks on him are nothing more than a “witch hunt.”