Watch: Legal expert dismantles Trump’s argument for dismissing Mar-a-Lago docs case
Former President Donald Trump and his attorneys have used a variety of arguments against special counsel Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago documents prosecution, including the claim that the Presidential Records Act invalidates the case.
But legal expert Temidayo Aganga-Williams, a former senior investigative counsel for the January 6 Select Committee, shot down that argument during a CNN appearance on Thursday morning, March 14.
"The Presidential Records Act is concerned with keeping a proper record of his official acts while in office," Aganga-Williams told CNN's Kate Bolduan. "So, it's not a case where the business he's conducting is not maintained for historical purposes. And that permits him to designate certain items as personal, meaning: This wasn't me doing something as president — it was me as an individual. That's completely and wholly separate from classified documents, which by any stretch of imagination, are going to be presidential in nature. That's all about doing the job of the presidency."
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Smith alleges that Trump endangered the United States' national security by storing classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago — documents that, according to the special counsel, should have remained in Washington, D.C. when Trump left the White House in January 2021.
Aganga-Williams told Bolduan, "The idea that a document regarding nuclear weapons could somehow be personal in nature, like a letter you sent to someone, it's ridiculous. So what Jack Smith is saying (is) that, first of all, you don't have that power. But separately, we have federal laws, criminal laws about how you retain documents — and there's no argument that's really credible that somehow, the Presidential Records Act is going to supersede criminal laws about when and how you retain documents. I think that's really the argument there."
During his CNN appearance, Aganga-Williams also discussed another criminal prosecution Trump is facing: Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' election interference/RICO case.
Trump's lawyers are arguing that Willis' prosecution is tainted because of her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. Willis, however, has maintained that their relationship in no way undermines her arguments in the case.
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When Bolduan asked if Aganga-Williams if he thought the "messy situation" with Willis and Wade would result in Willis being removed from the case, the CNN legal analyst responded, "I think it's just messy no matter what. But if I were a betting man, I'd think she's going to remain on the case. Frankly, the recent dismissal of some counts actually gives me more confidence that the judge is going to keep her on, because he's giving her office the opportunity to replete these counts — to go back to a grand jury and secure additional indictments of these charges, which to me, suggests that if he had a larger blockbuster ruling coming, he would have saved that."
Aganga-Williams added, "He's now deciding pretrial motions, which suggests he sees this case as moving along on a track to trial. So, I think she's actually in a pretty good position to stay on the case. And as far as what it does, I think frankly, it's messy. And I don't know that's any way around that. She made the choices that she made, and I personally think that they were not appropriate. I don't think it was a conflict of interest. So, I do think she should remain on the case."
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