Timothy Parlatore, who served as counsel for former President Donald Trump criticized the recent federal indictment related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents. The attorney told Politico that the case should be dismissed or that special counsel Jack Smith should be disqualified from leading the prosecution.
While Parlatore does not represent the former president at present, his recent statements may give an insight into how Trump’s legal team could approach the 37 felony charges.
Parlatore advised that the Trump legal team should “attack the conduct of the entire investigation and show through death by a thousand cuts why this entire investigation is irreparably tainted by government misconduct.”
The attorney said that the prosecutor’s decision to unseal notes related to the case was done before allowing the Trump legal team to be able to review them.
He also said that discussions between Trump and his legal team cited in the indictment were not relevant in crafting the charges.
Parlatore said that there should have “never been a crime-fraud exception, and once it was, it should have never been the evidence for a charge.”
“It’s insane,” he said.
Former Trump attorney Tim Parlatore believes the former president's defense team will claim prosecutorial misconduct in the ongoing documents probe, “I witnessed a lot of misconduct." Special counsel's office declined comment on Parlatore's allegations. pic.twitter.com/8qtRkaDNMR
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) June 8, 2023
The former president was arraigned at a federal court in Miami Tuesday, four days after he revealed that he was being charged related to the alleged handling of classified information.
The indictment was unsealed Friday, with federal prosecutors alleging that the former president violated the Espionage Act among other charges.
Despite the indictment, the former president appeared before events for the Georgia and North Carolina Republican committees.
At the event held in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump sharply criticized the indictment.
During his speech, he said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment was “baseless” and described the agency as the “Biden administration’s weaponized department of injustice.”
He further said that the charges would “go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country.”
During his remarks, Trump referred to President Joe Biden as a “totally corrupt president.”
He added that it was “no coincidence” that word of the indictment was revealed on the same day that evidence from an FBI document outlining alleged bribes taken by the Biden family was revealed.
Trump described himself as “the only candidate who has what it takes to smash this corrupt system.”
