Trump lawyers in classified documents case will ask the judge to suppress evidence from prosecutors

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump on Tuesday will ask the judge presiding over his classified documents case to prevent prosecutors from using evidence seized during an FBI search of his Florida estate and recordings made by one of his former attorneys.

The arguments are the culmination of a three-day hearing in which prosecutors and defense lawyers have sparred over topics ranging from the legality of the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith, whose team brought the case, to whether the Republican former president should be barred from making comments that could pose a risk to the safety of FBI agents involved in the investigation.

At issue Tuesday is a defense request to suppress the boxes of records that were taken from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach during the Aug. 8, 2022, FBI search. Defense lawyers contend that the warrant used to justify the search was misleading, in part because it did not include details of internal Justice Department debate about whether the search of the property was an appropriate step. They want what’s known in the law as a Franks hearing to further argue against prosecutors being able to use evidence from the search.

Prosecutors say that there was nothing misleading about the warrant application and that the judge who approved the search relied on a “common-sense determination that there was probable cause that evidence of a crime would be found in the location to be searched.”

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