(PatriotPostNews.com) – During the latest installment of former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial, attorney Jack Smith used a previous case argued by the same judge while she was a lawyer to entice her to reject a motion made by Trump’s lawyers.
Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the ongoing case against the former president, is expected to make a decision about whether to grant his legal team access to a number of government documents, which they have requested to prove that the lawsuit against Trump is political rather than motivated by justice.
February 2024 court filings from Smith and his team emphasized that the controversial judge had won a case in the past through an argument against seeking to prove political motivation for a lawsuit without already-held evidence. Specifically, Smith’s team cited a 2015 case in which Cannon worked as South Florida federal prosecutor.
The lawsuit involved the arrest of two men who had planned to steal cocaine armed with AK-47s, but the location was fake. During the trial, one of the defendants argued that he was only being convicted due to “selective prosecution,” saying the nature of sting operations targets those who are black and Hispanic.
By 2021, the court had sided with the prosecutors, although Cannon had already been appointed a judge. Additional cases were cited to support the requirement for evidence to be provided before individuals can obtain discovery for further evidence to prove they are being persecuted. Smith argued that, in the Trump case, his team’s “motion to compel” is seeking to obtain discovery to back “their unfounded allegation” that the case was brought on for political reasons, which amounts to “selective prosecution.”
Selective prosecution refers to the criminal prosecution of an individual for arbitrary reasons, such as opposition to one’s religious, ethnic, or political background. This equal protection requirement is grounded in the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause on the federal level and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, extending the same prohibition of selective prosecution to the states.
Trump, who is currently the top GOP candidate for the 2024 presidential nomination, was indicted on seven federal charges in June 2023 for alleged mishandling of federal documents and obstructing justice investigations.
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