Special Counsel Jack Smith hits back at judge for ‘fundamentally flawed legal premise’ in Trump documents case [Video]

Federal prosecutors rebuked the judge presiding over former President Trump’s classified documents case in the Southern District of Florida, asserting that potential jury instructions she issued rest on a “fundamentally flawed legal premise.” 

In a court filing Tuesday, Smith said U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s unusual request that prosecutors and defense attorneys submit hypothetical jury instructions was “wrong” and would “distort” the trial. The judge had asked the lawyers to respond to two different scenarios where she accepted Trump’s argument that he was entitled to retain sensitive documents under the Presidential Records Act, an act for which he now faces criminal charges.

Smith argued that the Presidential Records Act is not relevant to Trump’s case and told the judge that the Republican ex-president was not authorized under the Espionage Act to take highly classified documents with him to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida when he left the White House.

“Both scenarios rest on an unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise — namely, that the …