UNSEALED: Trump's Motion to Dismiss the Florida Charges based on Selective and Vindictive Prosecution

Judge Cannon has "unsealed" a Trump motion from her secret docket, and it's just as ridiculous as you'd expect.

Happy Thursday! As you may know by now, Judge Cannon has created a secret docket in what appears to be an attempt to delay the Special Counsel Espionage and Obstruction case in Florida. Since she won’t allow docket filings with redactions, both parties have to submit their filings on a secret docket via email. Trump often attaches exhibits with protected information, causing each of his 13 motions to get caught up in time-consuming litigation and hearings to determine what needs to be redacted from the public once the filings are docketed. The trump motion to compel discovery, for example, took months to litigate - with Trump knowing the Special Counsel will want to fight against the release of information that could damage the integrity of the proceeding or cause witness information to become public. So technically, this latest motion isn’t “unsealed”, but it’s been liberated from Judge Cannon’s weird and totally unnecessary secret docket.

This is the Trump motion to dismiss the charges based on selective and vindictive prosecution. The actual motion is only 24 pages, but it has over 150 pages of addenda that had to be litigated for redactions - presumably to delay the proceeding.

The Supreme Court has defined selective prosecution as "… not a defense on the merits to the criminal charge itself, but an independent assertion that the prosecutor has brought the charge for reasons forbidden by the Constitution." Vindictive prosecution occurs where a prosecutor retaliates against a defendant for exercising a constitutional or statutory right by increasing the number or severity of the charges against him.

Trump opens his motion by quoting Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents: “With one exception, there is no record of the Department of Justice prosecuting a former president or vice president for mishandling classified documents from his own administration.” “The exception is President Trump. The basis is his politics and status as President Biden’s chief political rival. Thus, this case reflects the type of selective and vindictive prosecution that cannot be tolerated. Accordingly, further discovery and a hearing are necessary, and the Superseding Indictment must be dismissed.”

Leave it to Trump to cherry pick quotes from the Hur report the same way he misquotes Marbury v Madison and the Executive Vesting Clause in his immunity arguments. Hur goes on to make damning comparisons between Biden and Trump, but conveniently leaves that out to mislead the court. Here’s the NEXT SENTENCE in the Hur report: “It is not our role to assess the criminal charges pending against Mr. Trump, but several material distinctions between Mr. Trump's case and Mr. Biden's are clear. Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would present serious aggravating facts.”

Hur then lays out the difference: “Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it. In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview. and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.”

Trump leaves all that out, of course, and goes on to say: “American history is chock full of public examples involving alleged mishandling of classified information and documents, which did not result in the type of politically motivated charges that the Special Counsel’s Office has brought against President Trump and his codefendants. Set forth below are some of the most glaring and egregious examples.”

First of all; “chock full?” Also, NO ONE has broken the law more fantastically than Donald Trump. Had they included the FULL findings in the Hur report, that would be glaringly obvious. Again, this motion is nothing more than an instrument of delay, so we shouldn’t expect it to make any sense. The goal with this filing was to attach 150 pages of bullshit that would have to be litigated for months on a secret docket before its public release.

But the idiocy doesn’t stop there. Trump actually tries to equate what Biden did with what he did by once again cherry picking the Hur report: “On May 24, 2022—the same month that DOJ issued a grand jury subpoena to President Trump’s Office—White House counsel Dana Remus instructed Kathy Chung, President Biden’s former executive assistant, to retrieve the boxes from the Penn Biden Center. See Ex. 2 at 2; see also Hur Report at 257. On June 28, 2022, Ms. Chung packed 13 boxes at the Penn Biden Center, which “would later be found to have contained classified materials.”

But in true Trump fashion, his defense works against him. Biden gave all the boxes back, where Trump fought with NARA for over a year, got a subpoena, picked through the boxes to decide what to return, had his lawyers (including the now-indicted head of election integrity at the RNC Christina Bobb) sign a false attestation that everything was returned. Then he played musical boxes with his co-defendants to hide shit during a search of his home, and then tried to delete video footage of it. AND THEN tried to delete video footage of them trying to delete video footage.

Trump then compares himself to VP Pence, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jim Comey and his memos, David Patraeus, Sandy Berger, John Deutch, and Debora Birx. He’s basically saying “Look at all these people who weren’t charged, but I was, showing that I’m being singled out because Biden is my opponent and he doesn’t like my politics.”

Nah, bro. You were charged because you committed crimes and the others weren’t charged because they didn’t. Even Hur agrees with that.

Trump then makes a debunked allegation with zero evidence: “Through two lawless prosecutions initiated at the express urging of the Biden Administration, including this case, the Special Counsel’s Office seeks to “become a de facto campaign voice for the Democrats in the general election,” and Jack Smith is “probably less concerned now with whether a Trump conviction will survive appeal than with whether Trump can be convicted ahead of the November 2024 election.” I don’t think I’ve seen a motion yet that didn’t falsely accuse Biden of having a hand in the prosecution - even the STATE prosecutions. Most judges don’t like that kind of thing, but we’re dealing with Judge Cannon here.

And of course, for good measure, he asks for more litigation and a hearing to further delay the proceeding: “Accordingly, the Court require the Special Counsel’s Office to produce relevant discovery, hold a hearing, and then dismiss the Superseding Indictment.” Let’s be clear: the “additional discovery” doesn’t exist, and a hearing isn’t necessary. She’ll probs grant one, though.

Finally, Trump tries to convince the court that he’s “similarly situated” to the aforementioned people who weren’t charged with crimes, and that his obstruction is totes cool because some of those other folks also obstructed justice: “Finally, the unproven obstruction allegations by the Special Counsel’s Office cannot save this prosecution. Hillary Clinton and her colleagues deleted 31,830 emails and destroyed data on numerous electronic devices, including after a congressional preservation order. Comey hid from the FBI that he had used a private scanner and his personal email account to transmit at least two classified documents to his personal attorneys. Berger stole documents from NARA and cut three of them “into small pieces,” which resulted in NARA having informal “‘Sandy Berger’ rules.”

It’s not surprising that Trump doesn’t understand the elements of obstruction of justice, which include an overt act, a nexus to an official proceeding, and intent. He fails here to explain how the others’ actions failed to meet those elements. Though to be fair, he’s been lied to by Bill Barr about what constitutes obstruction in his OLC memo requiring an underlying crime. Funny he doesn’t mention that here because even that is a bridge too far.

The 150 pages of exhibits include:

• A letter from Jim Comer about testimony from a Biden aid

• Another letter from Comer about testimony from another Biden aid

• Another letter from Comer demanding NARA communications (all kinds of info from Trump lap dogs serving as his personal public defense)

• Statements from the Biden White House about their cooperation (what the hell is that supposed to prove? lol)

• Another letter from Comer demanding stupid irrelevant shit

• A letter from Pence’s attorney about the investigation into him (I guess proving he was investigated?)

• A letter from Pence’s lawyer to NARA (showing his cooperation - which is in contrast to Trump’s obstruction. lol)

• A copy of the plea agreement with Petraeus (Again, what the fuck? All this shows is that he cooperated and Trump definitely didn’t.)

• The plea with Sandy Berger (ditto)

• The 24 year old Inspector General report on John Deutch, which shows why he wasn’t prosecuted lol

• The DoD IG report on Deutch

• This one is weird: an email from NARA to [redacted] listing all the ways Trump flouted preservation of presidential records. By the way, the redactions in this were likely what caused the months-long delay. Trump is using shit that cuts against his case just so he can get delay out of redactions. I would say “unbelievable”, but it’s totally believable.

• An email from NARA detailing a meeting at the White House about the Trump boxes. Trump is probably trying to show the White House and Biden were involved in the prosecution, but all this shows is that White House Counsel was advising on privilege. There are several redactions of names here, too.

And that’s it. I’ll keep you posted as to whether Cannon further delays the proceeding by scheduling a totally needless hearing on this idiotic filing. Thanks for reading The Breakdown! Please subscribe if you haven’t already. It’s free! Pledging is totally optional, and thanks for supporting independent media <3

You can read Trump’s motion here.