Prosecutors in former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case sought on Thursday to rebut his claim that he is a victim of selective prosecution, rejecting the former president’s argument that he was being treated more harshly than President Biden had been in an investigation into his handling of sensitive materials.
The evidence of potential wrongdoing is “starkly different” in the two matters, the prosecutors wrote.
In one of an array of motions to dismiss the documents case against Mr. Trump filed last month, the former president’s lawyers cited the decision by Robert K. Hur, the special counsel who scrutinized Mr. Biden’s handling of classified information when he was out of office, not to bring charges. If Mr. Biden was not charged, Mr. Trump should not be either, Mr. Trump’s lawyers maintained.
But prosecutors working for the special counsel investigating Mr. Trump, Jack Smith, accused the Trump legal team of misrepresenting Mr. Hur’s findings. Despite some “superficial similarities between the two cases,” they argued that the evidence that Mr. Trump committed crimes was far stronger and noted that Mr. Hur himself explained in his report how Mr. Trump’s alleged conduct — including attempted obstruction — was far worse.
“The volume, sensitivity and storage of the documents all point in the same direction — that Trump’s conduct was more serious — thus confirming that the two cases are not ‘nearly identical’ and that there are ‘legitimate reasons for viewing them differently,’” they wrote.
They added: “Trump has not shown that Biden’s conduct, as described in the Hur Report, makes him a similarly situated comparator for purposes of his selective prosecution claim.”
