Comment on this storyCommentAdd to your saved storiesSave
FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s indictment for allegedly mishandling national security secrets suggested at a hearing Wednesday that she might push back the planned trial timeline, citing the potential complications with the former president’s three other criminal cases.
Judge Aileen M. Cannon listened to prosecutors argue for keeping the schedule she set earlier this year, while lawyers for the former president insisted they needed more time to prepare.
“I’m having a hard time seeing how this work can be accomplished in this compressed time frame,” Cannon said at one point, focusing in particular on a federal trial scheduled to begin March 4 in Washington in which Trump is accused of conspiring to obstruct the results of the 2020 election.
Prosecutor Jay Bratt argued that whatever the deadlines may be in other cases, those could all change, so it did not make sense to alter the trial date in the Florida case. Cannon sounded skeptical.
“I’m not quite seeing in your position an understanding of these realities,” Cannon told Bratt.
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche spent close to an hour telling the judge how “voluminous” the evidence in the classified documents case is, and emphasizing that he and Trump’s other lawyers need more time to review it. He also noted that the D.C. indictment — also brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith — came after Trump was first charged in the classified-documents case. The Florida trial date also was set by Cannon before Trump was indicted in Washington.
“Everything has changed” since prosecutors first brought the Florida charges, Blanche said.
Subscribe to The Trump Trials, our weekly email newsletter on Donald Trump’s four criminal cases
Trump is charged in Florida with dozens of counts of mishandling classified information and plotting with two aides to obstruct government efforts to recover hundreds of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his home and private club, after his presidency ended. He has pleaded not guilty.
The Justice Department had initially requested the Florida trial to begin in December — far earlier than Trump’s bid to hold it the 2024 presidential election.
Prosecutors say Trump and his lawyers have had ample time to review the materials, and have overstated the logistical difficulties of doing so. Prosecutors said there was a small number of classified materials so sensitive that Trump initially could only review them in Washington D.C., because a secure-enough facility was not yet ready in Florida.
But they said that all the classified materials are now available to review in Florida.
Trump also faces two state-level indictments — creating a maze of potential court dates and primaries that could make the 2024 presidential race unlike any other in the country’s history.
His federal trial in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to start just one day before Super Tuesday, the day more than a dozen states select a GOP nominee.
Trump is also slated to go on trial in New York court later in March, on state charges of business fraud related to hush money payments made in 2016.
The former president has also been indicted in Fulton County, Georgia by the local district attorney. That case, which has yet to get a trial date, charges the president was part of a sprawling conspiracy to block the state’s results in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in all the criminal cases.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
Trump Mar-a-Lago classified documents
View 3 more stories
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/01/trump-florida-trial-delay-cannon/