Lawyers for former President Trump told the federal judge overseeing his prosecution on charges of mishandling classified documents that they intend to ask the government for more information, including assessments of any damage to national security. The lawyers told Judge Aileen Cannon that they plan to ask prosecutors for additional information about how the documents at issue were related to national defense, a requirement of the Espionage Act, one of the statutes Trump has been accused of violating. They said they wanted “tracking information” concerning the classified records, the New York Times reports..
Papers filed on Friday suggest Trump may attack the Espionage Act counts he is facing by questioning whether the documents he took from the White House were actually related to national defense. They suggest he may seek to downplay how damaging their removal from the White House was to national security. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team filed its own set of papers on Friday, telling Cannon that they intend to call FBI agents to testify concerning data extracted from cellphones and other devices seized from Trump’s two co-defendants, Walt Nauta, a personal aide who served Trump at Mar-a-Lago and Carlos De Oliveira, Mar-a-Lago’s property manager. Both men have been charged with Trump in a conspiracy to obstruct the government’s repeated attempts to retrieve the classified materials.