Special counsel Jack Smith has argued the case he is prosecuting against former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified information is “starkly different” from the case the Department of Justice declined to bring against President Joe Biden over retention of classified documents.
Prosecutors, in responding to a motion President Trump filed to dismiss the case based on selective and vindictive prosecution, said on Thursday this is not the case of “two men ‘commit[ting] the same basic crime in substantially the same manner.”
They argue the similarities are only “superficial,” and that there are two main differences: that President Trump allegedly “engaged in extensive and repeated efforts to obstruct justice and thwart the return of documents” and the “evidence concerning the two men’s intent.”
Special counsel Robert Hur’s report found that there was evidence that President Biden “willfully” retained classified Afghanistan documents, but that evidence “fell short” of concluding guilt of willful retention beyond reasonable doubt.
Prosecutors argue the “strength of the evidence” is a crucial element showing these cases are not “similarly situated.”
“Trump may dispute the Hur Report’s conclusions but he should not be allowed to misrepresent them,” prosecutors wrote, arguing that the defense’s argument to dismiss the case fell short of legal standards.
They point to volume as another distinction: President Biden had 88 classified documents and President Trump had 337. Prosecutors also argued that while President Biden’s Delaware garage “was plainly an unsecured location … whatever risks are posed by storing documents in a private garage” were “dwarfed” by President Trump storing documents at an “active social club” with 150 staff members and hundreds of visitors.
Defense attorneys had also cited a New York Times report where President Biden was reported to have held the view that President Trump should be prosecuted, expressing concern about his retention of documents at Mar-a-lago.
Prosecutors argued that this case was not “foisted” upon the special counsel, who had not been appointed at the time of these comments.
“Trump appears to contend that it was President Biden who actually made the decision to seek the charges in this case; that Biden did so solely for unconstitutional reasons,” the filing reads. “He presents no evidence whatsoever to show that Biden’s comments about him had any bearing on the Special Counsel’s decision to seek charges, much less that the Special Counsel is a ’stalking horse.’”
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