By Devlin Barrett, The Washington PostA police officer stands beside an entrance to the Alto Lee Adams Sr. U.S. Courthouse, Aug. 15, 2023, in Fort Pierce, Fla.
In that hearing, she sounded skeptical that Trump’s attack on the Espionage Act, or his embrace of the Presidential Records Act, were strong enough to save the former president and likely 2024 Republican White House nomineearguments might be valid enough to come into play during jury instructions. to declare highly classified documents to be their own personal property. National security law experts say that is not what the law says, or how it has been interpreted over decades by the courts, particularly given the other laws that govern national security secrets.
The second scenario Cannon describes is one in which a president “has sole authority under the PRA to categorize records as personal or presidential during his/her presidency. Neither a court nor a jury is permitted to make or review such a categorization decision.” At the same time, she suggested Trump could raise the issue later “in connection with jury-instruction briefing and/or other appropriate motions,” an invitation that appears to have led to Monday’s order. Trump had argued in his motion that the Espionage Act, which has been used for decades to convict others of improperly possessing classified documents, was too vaguely worded to be used in his indictment.
It is one of four criminal trials Trump is facing, and his lawyers have fought to try to delay them all until after the election. Cannon originally scheduled the Florida trial to begin the week of May 20, but she has made clear more time is needed to sort through pretrial issues having to do with using classified documents as evidence. She held a hearing to discuss a new trial date on March 1 but has not yet ruled.
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