(Washington) – Donald Trump's lawyers asked a federal court Thursday to drop charges that he illegally kept secret documents after leaving the White House, arguing that he has criminal immunity.
In this case, Donald Trump is accused of endangering the security of the United States by keeping secret documents after leaving the White House in January 2021 at his residence in Florida, instead of handing them over to the National Archives according to the law. It requires him to do so.
He then allegedly thwarted investigators' attempts to recover them.
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the 40 counts that make up the indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Florida.
In a 20-page motion, Trump's lawyers said that when he removed the documents from the White House, it was an official act.
President Trump made this decision while in office. The alleged decision was an official act and therefore subject to presidential immunity.
Excerpt from the request
The front-runner in the Republican primary for the November presidential election, targeted by four separate criminal charges, is seeking through multiple appeals to stand trial as soon as possible.
Mr. Trump used the same argument against a federal indictment for conspiracy against the US state after his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, which led to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, by a mob of his supporters.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled that his immunity claim was not supported by the US Constitution. Trump then went to the Supreme Court to try to suspend that decision.
The issue of criminal immunity for a former US president has never been tested in US jurisprudence because until the Trump case, no former president had ever been charged with a crime.
