Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday implored the judge in charge of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago documents case not to force the government into complying with defense discovery motions.
In the government's response in opposition, Smith aims to methodically pick apart each theory floated by the defense - while trying to convince U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the alleged discovery violations are not only misplaced but irrelevant to the case.
"Their apparent aim is to cast a cloud of suspicion over responsible actions by government officials diligently doing their jobs. The defendants' insinuations have scant factual or legal relevance to their discovery requests, but they should not stand uncorrected." Smith goes on to offer the state's theory of the case.
"The law required that those documents be collected. And the record establishes that the relevant government officials performed their tasks with professionalism and patience in the face of unprecedented defiance." The defense, echoing in somewhat subdued language Trump's own electioneering complaints about the "Witch hunts" he faces in various jurisdictions, argues there is, somewhere in the government's archives or servers, "Additional evidence of bias and political animus that is central to the defense" and which must be produced by Smith's office.
The combined impact of the defense's "Bias and political animus" and "Prosecution team" enlargement requests would likely substantially balloon the universe of potential discovery - and, in turn, increase the government's concomitant discovery obligations.
"[T]hey seek abstract rulings on the scope of the prosecution team and various directives that the Government provide them with a range of additional materials," the government's response reads.
"The motion should be denied as legally and factually flawed. Discovery requests must be based on specific demands, tied to the case, for items material to preparing the defense. Instead of meeting those standards, the defendants' motion seeks non-discoverable materials based on speculative, unsupported, and false theories." While getting into the merits of a case might be somewhat atypical in discovery battles, the monthslong back-and-forth pretrial docketing in the Mar-a-Lago case has also been atypical, with the defense being allowed wide latitude to plead their case by the judge - and the government feeling like they have no choice but to respond in kind.
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