In an 86-page ruling last year, D.C. federal judge Beryl Howell went through the arguments from Donald Trump’s lawyers in his classified documents case and took them apart, barely concealing her disdain for defense claims that the former president – charged with taking national security secrets with him to his Florida resort and not giving them back – is a victim in all this.
First, a relatively brief recap: In June 2022, an attorney for Trump signed a document certifying that their client had handed over all classified documents in his possession. In August 2022, the Department of Justice, believing that certification to be false, carried out a court-authorized search at a Mar-a-Lago, recovering boxes full of top-secret documents, including information related to nuclear programs. Then, in December of that year, Trump’s attorneys, conducting a search of their own, found even more material – including folders in the former president’s bedroom.
