The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents case was scheduled on Tuesday afternoon to hear arguments from prosecutors and the former president’s lawyers about whether to delay the criminal trial until 2024 in Fort Pierce, Florida.
The pre-trial conference before US district court judge Aileen Cannon is also expected to address the protective order outlining the release of classified documents to the Trump legal team in discovery that prosecutors want to use at trial.
Prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the documents case and the investigation into Trump’s efforts to obstruct the transfer of power, asked Cannon in court filings last week to reject Trump’s request to indefinitely delay scheduling a trial date.
The dueling requests from Trump and the justice department present an early test for Cannon, a Trump appointee who is under scrutiny after previously issuing favorable rulings to the former president during the criminal investigation before her decisions were overturned on appeal.
The consequences of such a delay could be far-reaching. If the case is not adjudicated until after the 2024 election, in which Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination and is re-elected, he could try to pardon himself or direct the attorney general to have prosecutors drop the case.
Trump was charged last month with retaining national defense information, including US nuclear secrets and plans for US retaliation in the event of an attack, which means his case will be tried under the rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa.
The statute was passed in the 1980s to protect the government against the “graymail” problem in national security cases, a tactic where the defense threatens to reveal classified information at trial, betting that the government would prefer to drop the charges rather than risk disclosure.
While Cipa established a mechanism through which the government can safely charge cases involving classified documents, the series of steps that have to be followed means it takes longer to get to trial compared with regular criminal cases without national security implications.
Trump and his co-defendant, his valet Walt Nauta, have pleaded not guilty.
The first step is the section 2 hearing scheduled for 2pm. According to the Justice Manual, the informal handbook for prosecutors, the judge is required to set a timetable for the classified discovery and deadlines for the defense to announce what classified materials they want to use.
Ahead of the pre-trial conference, Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Chris Kise argued in court filings that Cannon should not bother setting a tentative trial date until the major pre-trial motions were finished because they could not know how long classified discovery might take.
The Trump legal team also claimed that going to trial before the 2024 presidential election – prosecutors have outlined a schedule for a trial date in December – would be unrealistic because of supposed challenges in selecting an impartial jury.
In their reply last week, prosecutors took aim at Trump’s arguments for an indefinite delay, rejecting the claims that the charges touched on novel legal issues or that the discovery process was uniquely complex
“The defendants are, of course, free to make whatever arguments they like for dismissal,” the prosecutors wrote. “But they should not be permitted to gesture at a baseless legal argument, call it ‘novel,’ and then claim the court will require an indefinite continuance.”
The filing took particular issue with the Trump lawyers’ suggestion that any trial should be delayed until after the 2024 election because of the supposed difficulty in selecting an impartial jury.
“To be sure, the government readily acknowledges that jury selection here may merit additional protocols (such as a questionnaire) that may be more time-consuming than in other cases, but those are reasons to start the process sooner rather than later,” prosecutors wrote.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
