Janice R. Andrews
Attorneys representing Donald Trump will request that the judge overseeing his case involving secret papers forbid the use of evidence obtained by the FBI from his Florida home search as well as recordings produced by one of his former attorneys by the prosecution.
This move concludes a three-day hearing that included discussions over whether special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was lawful and whether Trump’s remarks put FBI agents in risk.
The defense’s motion to suppress the boxes of documents that the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on August 8, 2022, is one of the hearing’s main issues. The defense claims that by leaving out specifics of internal Justice Department conversations, the search warrant was misleading. In order to contest the use of this evidence, they want a Franks hearing. The warrant was reasonable, according to the prosecution, and it was based on probable cause.
The use of evidence from Trump’s previous attorneys—especially audio recordings of conversations regarding returning secret documents by M. Evan Corcoran—is another thorny matter. Normally shielded by attorney-client privilege, the crime-fraud doctrine mandated the sharing of these tapes.
There will be a closed session to begin the hearing before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, and then public arguments in the afternoon. Trump, who has entered a not guilty plea and is exempt from appearing in court, is charged with several felonies for unlawfully storing secret materials and impeding government efforts to retrieve them.
