Trump suffers pair of setbacks as judges reject calls to dismiss charges

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

44% : Trump had argued that his retention of highly sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office in 2021 was authorized under a U.S. law that lets former presidents keep personal records unrelated to their official responsibilities.
35% : Those cases represent just some of the legal entanglements facing Trump, who has been criminally charged in four cases as he challenges Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election, with the first-ever trial of a sitting or former U.S. president due to get underway in New York on April 15.Florid-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday rejected Trump's argument that the case accusing him of illegally holding onto classified documents should be thrown out on the basis of his argument that they were his personal records rather than government property.
35% : Trump was not authorized to keep secret information related to U.S. national security after leaving the White House even if he viewed the records as personal, according to prosecutors.
28% : Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee found that the indictment alleges statements by Trump and 14 others charged in the case were made "in furtherance of criminal activity" and are not protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
27% : Smith pushed back on that order, which prosecutors argued was based on a flawed premise that the presidential records law is relevant to whether Trump was authorized to keep classified documents.
27% : Cannon previously rejected Trump's bid to throw out the central charge against him - violating a portion of a federal law called the Espionage Act concerning willful retention of national security records - based on claims that the charge was improperly vague.
26% : Trump, who has called all four criminal indictments against him politically motivated, still has several pending challenges to the documents case, including arguments that he has presidential immunity from prosecution and that he was selectively targeted by prosecutors.
21% : Trump has delayed trials in three of the four criminal cases.
21% : The judge, appointed to the bench by Trump, on March 18 then directed the prosecution and defense to propose jury instructions based on two legal scenarios assuming Trump's argument would play a role at trial.
17% : By Andrew GoudswardWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump suffered a pair of legal setbacks on Thursday as judges spurned his calls to dismiss criminal charges over the former U.S. president's efforts to overturn his 2020 loss in Georgia and his keeping classified records after leaving office.
15% : In an earlier Thursday setback, a Georgia judge rejected Trump's bid to dismiss criminal charges in the state's 2020 election interference case against him, which Trump argued violate his free speech rights.

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