Special Counsel Jack Smith slams 'pure fiction' notion

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

48% : In their own response, Trump's defense team said that in the first scenario, it would expect Cannon to tell the jury that Trump was 'authorized' by the Presidential Records Act to 'possess a category of documents defined as "personal records", both during and after his term in office.'
47% : In this case prosecutors would have to prove the records belong to the government rather than to Trump.
44% : Both scenarios rest on an unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise - namely, that the Presidential Records Act and in particular its distinction between "personal" and "presidential" records, determines whether a former President is "authorized", under the Espionage Act, to possess highly classified documents and store them in an unsecure facility,' Smith's team wrote according to CNN .
43% : Cannon ( has not yet ruled on competing proposals from Trump and prosecutors to delay the currently scheduled May 20 trial until later this summer.
36% : Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of knowingly retaining secret records related to the US national defense and obstructing efforts by the US government to retrieve them.
31% : The records law could not authorize Trump to keep classified papers, they said.
29% : Trump has cast the cases as part of a politically motivated effort to damage his campaign.
28% : While Trump has clashed with judges in many of his legal cases, Cannon has been receptive to his defense in ways that could alter the course of the documents case.
28% : Allowing a jury to consider those claims would 'give Trump a fighting chance in a jury trial that would never likely exist in another case,' Zaid said.
26% : In a biting rebuke late last night, Smith slammed the defense that Trump had unchecked ability to claim all classified records as his personal property as 'pure fiction' and has having 'no basis in law or fact'. '
25% : In a setback for Trump's defense, Cannon last month rejected an attempt to invalidate the central charge against him 'willfully retaining classified information.'Cannon (Pictured) has escaped the ire Trump has directed at judges overseeing his other legal cases, who he has frequently accused of bias and criticized in personal terms.
20% : The prosecution is one of four facing Trump as he seeks to unseat Democrat Joe Biden in the November 5 presidential election.
18% : Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, had asked Trump and prosecutors to propose jury instructions based on two legal scenarios that favour Trump's claims that he had broad authority to take classified documents.

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