Special counsel slams idea that Trump could claim classified docs as personal records

Special counsel Jack Smith, responding on Tuesday to the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's classified documents case, urged her to reverse course on entertaining the idea that Trump had any personal ownership over the classified materials he has been charged with unlawfully possessing. In a late-night filing replying to an order last month from Judge Aileen Cannon requesting proposed jury instructions that appeared to accept at face value what legal experts have argued is one of Trump's most fringe defenses — that the former president had unchecked ability to claim all classified records as his personal property — Smith argued that accepting such an argument would not only be "pure fiction," but "meritless and fatally undermined" by all the evidence gathered by the government as part of their case.