Donald Trump is requesting that Special Counsel Jack Smith's hand over more easily viewable Mar-a-Lago security footage obtained as part of the classified documents case.
In court filings submitted on Tuesday, the former president and his co-defendants in the federal case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveria, accused federal prosecutors of failing to provide their lawyers a "comprehensive set of functional video" while arguing they have not been able to review some footage because of technical difficulties including "exceptionally" slow file decompression, and files that fail to play after decompression.
Trump's legal team said that it requires "access to workable video" ahead of the federal trial beyond what the Smith's office deems "relevant in order to properly investigate the facts and represent their clients."
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 charges related to allegations he allegedly retained classified materials after he left office in January 2021, and then obstructed the federal attempt to retrieve them. Nauta and De Oliveira, who have also pleaded not guilty to obstruction charges, are accused of moving boxes of sensitive materials around Mar-a-Lago so they could not be found by the FBI, as well conspiring to delete security footage at the resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
In their filings, lawyers for all three defendants are urging the courts in Florida to compel Smith's team (SCO) to produce the about 80 terabytes of CCTV footage in a manner that is "readily accessible" to the defense while suggesting that the special counsel's team is hindering preparations.
"The fact remains that the SCO failed to provide a comprehensive set of functional video that defense counsel need in order to properly investigate critical facts in this case, and it is evident from the SCO's many 'key clips' that it was able to effectively use the video it obtained," the lawyers wrote.
"A full set of functional video is necessary to understand how the SCO allegedly located additional classified documents in the Mar-a-Lago storage room during the August 8, 2022, search warrant execution after counsel for President Trump searched the same room in early June and directed that an additional lock be installed in mid-June.
"Video would show whether, or not, additional materials were brought to the storage room in the meantime."
The defense team also claimed that it has been "left with an inconsistent, unreliable, and partial production" amount of video to prepare for the case that would take a "substantial amount of time to view under the best of circumstances."
"Defendants request that the Court require the government to provide a complete set of operational and unzipped and/or not compressed video files," they added.
Smith's office denied the claims put forward by Trump and his team and dismissed their attempts to equate the practice of compressing files with deliberately trying to make then unwatchable as "misleading and baseless."
Smith's team added in court filings: "The Government has produced the CCTV footage in an accessible format and has also taken several additional steps to facilitate ease of review for defense counsel, all of whom are able to access and view the footage.
"Accordingly, the Court should deny as moot the defendants' unsupported request for an order compelling production of the CCTV footage in an accessible format."
A spokesperson for Smith's office declined to comment further when contacted by Newsweek.
The trial date in the classified documents case has yet to be finalized as Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the case, is expected to postpone it beyond its scheduled start date of May 20.
Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has long faced accusations he is trying to delay the start of the federal classified documents trial until after November's election.
If Trump beats President Joe Biden in November, he could order the Department of Justice to drop the case once he enters office.
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Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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