Published November 10, 2023
A federal judge in Florida, for now, declined to delay the start of former President Trump’s criminal case over his handling of classified documents, though she did push back several pretrial deadlines in the case.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Friday that she would dismiss the motion from Trump’s legal team “without prejudice” against taking it up again in the future. The trial’s start date could be reconsidered at a scheduling conference March 1, she wrote.
The order is a small victory for special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which had strongly argued against any delays in the case by suggesting that the former president wanted to push the case until after the 2024 presidential election. Trump is the undisputed front-runner in the GOP presidential primary.
When Cannon heard arguments about a potential delay earlier this month, she appeared ready to side with Trump’s attorneys’ request to postpone the trial, saying she “has a hard time seeing how realistically this [current schedule] would work.”
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SOURCE: www.thehill.com
RELATED: Trump admits ‘various people’ saw ‘papers and boxes’ brought from White House
Judge Aileen Cannon (L), and Former President Donald Trump (R).: US Courts (L) | Getty Images (R)
Published November 10, 2023
A Florida federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump rejected his request — for now, at least — to delay the scheduled May 20 start of his criminal trial for keeping classified governmentdocuments after he exited the White House.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case, arguing that he had the right to take whatever he wanted from the White House.
On Friday, Trump went a step further and acknowledged that “various people” in and around the club saw the “papers and boxes” that he took with him, which prosecutors say contained 1,545 pages of classified material.
“Of course they did! They may have been the boxes etc. that were openly and plainly brought from the White House, as is my right under the Presidential Records Act,” Trump posted on social media.
Under the Presidential Records Act, which became law in 1978, “any records created or received by the President as part of his constitutional, statutory, or ceremonial duties are the property of the United States government and will be managed by NARA at the end of the administration,” the National Archives notes on its website.
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SOURCE: www.cnbc.com
RELATED: Judge Aileen Cannon rebuffs Trump’s call for trial delay in classified documents case — for now
The trial remains slated to start in May, but the judge said she would revisit the schedule in March.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon concurred with special counsel Jack Smith’s team that the law favors “the public’s right to a speedy trial.” | U.S. Senate via AP
Published November 10, 2023
Donald Trump’s trial on charges that he hoarded classified military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate will remain scheduled for May 20, the federal judge overseeing the case ruled Friday, rejecting for now demands by the former president to postpone the case until after the presidential election next November.
But in a nine-page order, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said she would revisit the trial schedule in March, after Trump and prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith have more time to hash out complicated disputes over Trump and his co-defendants’ access to the reams of classified material at the heart of the case.
Cannon — who was nominated by Trump in 2020 and confirmed about two weeks after he lost his bid for reelection — acknowledged the challenges posed by “an unusually high volume” of evidence, especially given Trump’s need to prepare for other overlapping criminal cases.
While Cannon conceded “evolving and unforeseen circumstances” in the case, she concurred with Smith’s team that the law favors “the public’s right to a speedy trial” and she said she was not persuaded to impose a delay in the trial date — for now. Instead, the judge extended a handful of interim pretrial deadlines and set a March 1 hearing to revisit the viability of the trial date. She noted that Trump is also facing criminal proceedings in New York and Washington, D.C., that add to the complexity of his ability to prepare for trial.
Trump’s team welcomed the news of Cannon’s decision to revisit the schedule later.
