In a new filing arguing against providing information on a potential advice-of-counsel defense where he would claim innocence in the Mar-a-Lago federal classified documents case by saying he got shitty advice from his lawyers, Donald Trump’s legal team claims Special Counsel Jack Smith
“The Special Counsel’s Office has repeatedly demanded deadlines in this case that are detached from reality and practice, and this Motion is no different,” Trump’s lawyers whine. “The 60 days requested in the Motion would give the Office more time to ‘investigate’ an advice-of-counsel defense than the Office proposed to give President Trump to review approximately 1.3 million pages of discovery and file Rule 12(b) motions. The Court rejected the Office’s earlier unjust proposal, and the same result is appropriate here.”
In the documents case, Trump is expected to claim he was just following his lawyers’ advice regarding the return of classified and other government documents, and that the advice was faulty. To counter the claim, Smith’s office would have to gain access to the faulty advice Trump claims he followed. But in various public accounts, Trump’s lawyers were urging him to comply with the federal government’s orders to return the document.