The Florida judge overseeing Donald Trump‘s federal criminal case, involving allegations of illegally keeping classified documents after leaving the White House, denied the former president’s bid Thursday for a hearing on the validity of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant.
Judge Denies Trump’s Bid To Toss Mar-A-Lago Warrant : No Substantial Preliminary Showing
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said there wasn’t a “substantial preliminary showing” the warrant affidavit contained false information. In an order filed in Fort Pierce, Florida, federal court, Judge Cannon denied Trump’s request for a Franks hearing to determine if the search warrant affidavit contained intentionally misleading or false information. She emphasized that courts are directed to give “great deference” to a magistrate judge’s determination of probable cause and that affidavits are “presumptively valid.”
“Defendant Trump has not made the requisite ‘substantial preliminary showing’ to warrant a Franks hearing,” Judge Cannon said. “He identifies four omissions in the warrant, but none of the omitted information — even if added to the affidavit in support of the warrant — would have defeated a finding of probable cause.”
Judge Denies Trump’s Bid To Toss Mar-A-Lago Warrant : The Indictment
Trump, his personal aide Walt Nauta, and Carlos De Oliveira, property manager at the Mar-a-Lago estate, were hit with federal charges in a July 2023 superseding indictment. They are accused of a conspiracy to obstruct the investigation into whether the former president illegally retained classified national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021. All three men have pled not guilty to the charges.
Alleged Omissions and Misrepresentations
Emil Bove of Blanche Law, Trump’s attorney, argued before the judge in Fort Pierce on Tuesday that government officials misled U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in their affidavit to get a Mar-a-Lago search warrant in 2022. Bove claimed that U.S. Department of Justice officials either omitted or misrepresented four critical pieces of information. These included that Steven M. D’Antuono, then assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, believed it was appropriate to seek consent for a search first.
