The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case in Florida issued a rare ruling against the former president on Friday, denying his request to push back the May 2024 trial on charges he mishandled classified documents.
However, Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who has repeatedly ruled in his favor, did agree to push back some pre-trial deadlines and revisit other deadlines, including the trial date, in March. She warned that the case’s “unusually high volume of unclassified and classified [evidence]” meant that circumstances may change.
“[T]he quantity of discovery in this case remains exceedingly voluminous, even more so than initially thought,” she wrote. “To be sure, the Special Counsel has taken various steps to produce discovery on a regular basis. But even with these efforts, discovery has increased sizably from initial estimates.”
ADVERTISEMENT
She said Trump’s attorneys would be allowed to file another request for a trial delay in the future, noting that it was important Trump be afforded “adequate time to prepare for trial.”
In their request for a delay, Trump’s legal team had argued that it would be impossible to conduct simultaneous trials in Florida and D.C., where Trump faces charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election result. The D.C. trial is set to begin in March, placing both trials in the heart of the 2024 election primary season and potentially derailing Trump’s campaign to re-take the White House.
In a hearing last week, Cannon appeared sympathetic to Trump’s argument. But federal prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team later told Cannon that Trump’s legal team appeared to be trying to “manipulate” the court by not disclosing that they had also filed a request for the D.C. trial to be delayed.
“Trump’s actions... confirm his overriding interest in delaying both trials at any cost,” prosecutors argued.
Read it at CNN
