Former President Donald Trump's legal team filed a motion Tuesday seeking a full dismissal of his classified documents legal case on grounds that the Department of Justice mishandled evidence.
"President Trump's attorneys have filed a powerful motion asking Judge Cannon to fully and completely dismiss the "boxes" Hoax due to the illegal actions by Crooked Joe Biden's Department of Injustice in its shocking failure to preserve the boxes taken from President Trump's home in the unconstitutional and unAmerican raid on Mar-a-Lago," Steven Cheung, Trump's communications director, wrote in a press release.
Trump has been charged with illegally hoarding classified documents from his presidency and conspiring with valet Waltine Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira to hide the files from the government. The FBI raided Trump's Florida estate in August 2022.
Tuesday's motion, filed in the U.S. District Court of West Palm Beach, claims a "spoilation of evidence in violation of due process."
"The prosecution team destroyed exculpatory evidence supporting one of the most basic defenses available to President Trump in response to the politically motivated charges in this case," wrote Trump's attorneys in the filing.
The motion states that federal agents had been directed to document the location of seized items and potentially privileged materials but "agents disregarded those instructions."
"The government was more interested in staging—and leaking—manipulated photographs to the press than preserving key exculpatory evidence that has now been lost forever," the filing reads.
"Deranged Jack Smith was forced to admit in a public filing that he and his Thugs committed blatant Evidence Tampering by mishandling the very documents they used as pretext to bring this Fake Case. This scam, and all other Crooked Joe - directed Witch Hunts against President Trump, should be DROPPED IMMEDIATELY," Cheung's statement continued.
In addition to Tuesday's filing, the Trump team had previously attempted to have the case dismissed on the grounds that Trump was authorized under the Presidential Records Act to keep the documents and had the authority to designate them as personal files.
Earlier in the week, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied a previous request by the Trump team to dismiss some of the charges related to alleged obstruction and false statements.