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      Alleged ‘deal’ offer from Trump to big oil could save industry $110bn, study finds

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      A “deal” allegedly offered by Donald Trump to big-oil executives as he sought $1bn in campaign donations could save the industry $110bn in tax breaks if he returns to the White House, an analysis suggests.The fundraising dinner held last month at Mar-a-Lago with more than 20 executives, including from Chevron, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum, reportedly involved Trump asking for large campaign contributions and promising, if elected, to remove barriers to drilling, scrap a pause on gas exports, and reverse new rules aimed at cutting car pollution.Congressional Democrats have launched an investigation into the “ethical, campaign finance and legal issues” raised by what one Democratic senator called an “offer of a blatant quid pro quo”, while a prominent watchdog group is exploring whether the meeting warrants legal action.But the analysis shared with the Guardian shows that the biggest motivation for oil and gas companies to back Trump appears to be in the tax system, with about $110bn in tax breaks for the industry at stake should Joe Biden be re-elected in November’s election.Biden wants to eliminate the tax breaks, which include long-standing incentives to help drill for oil and gas, with a recent White House budget proposal targeting $35bn in domestic subsidies and $75bn in overseas fossil fuel income.“Big oil executivess are sweating in their seats at the thought of losing $110bn in special tax loopholes under Biden in 2025,” said Lukas Ross, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Action, which conducted the analysis.Ross said the tax breaks are worth nearly 11,000% more than the amount Trump allegedly asked the executives for in donations. “If Trump promises to protect polluter handouts during tax negotiations, then his $1bn shakedown is a cheap insurance policy for the industry,” he said.View image in fullscreenSome of the tax breaks have been around for decades, and are a global issue, but the US oil and gas industry benefited disproportionately from tax cuts passed by Trump when he was president in 2017.Next year, regardless of who is president, a raft of individual tax cuts included in that bill will expire, prompting a round of Washington deal-making over which industries, if any, will help fund an extension.Lobbying records show that Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Occidental, Cheniere and the American Petroleum Institute (API) have all met lawmakers this year to discuss this tax situation, likely encouraging them to ignore Biden’s plan to target the fossil fuel industry’s own carve-outs.Chevron and ConocoPhillips, the analysis shows, lobbied on a deduction for intangible drilling costs, the largest federal subsidy for US oil and gas companies, which is worth $10bn, according to federal figures.View image in fullscreenOther lobbying centered on more generalized tax breaks that the oil and gas industry has taken advantage of. ExxonMobil lobbied for a little-known bill that would restore a bonus depreciation deduction to its full value, which, according to Moody’s, would allow big oil to avoid Biden’s newly established corporate minimum tax.“Unlike previous administrations, I don’t think the federal government should give handouts to big oil,” Biden said following his inauguration in 2021. But Congress and the president will have to agree to any new tax arrangements next year, and the fossil-fuel industry continues to have staunch support from Republicans and some Democrats.The API insisted its industry gets no favorable treatment in the tax system. “America’s energy industry proudly invests in communities, pays local, state and federal taxes and receives no special tax treatment from the federal government,” an API spokesperson said.“This nonsense report is another attempt to distract from the importance of all energy sources – including oil and natural gas – to meet America’s growing energy needs.”Who was at Mar-a-Lago?The high stakes for the fossil-fuel industry, as well as for the climate crisis, have placed scrutiny upon those who attended Trump’s dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Although representatives of large oil companies were present, the majority of known attendees were executives of smaller firms focused on specific subsections of the fossil-fuel industry, such as fracking or gas exporting.Those companies are not often held to account in international forums such as the UN climate talks or the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which means they are less likely to make buzzy climate pledges. They may also be more threatened by regulations on individual parts of the US fossil fuel economy, such as auto-emissions standards aiming to quell gas-car usage.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The oil majors … see their future in plastic [production]. That doesn’t apply to the smaller companies who don’t work across the industry,” said Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity. “They’ve got nothing to shift to.”Among other reported attendees were the head of the company Venture Global, which rivals Qatar as one of the world’s leading liquefied natural gas exporters. This year, the company came under fire after it was revealed to have been using millions of gallons of water to construct a Louisiana LNG terminal while a nearby community faced extreme shortages. The firm was also accused late last year of reneging on its contracts by Shell and BP.Another attendee: Nick Dell’Osso, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, which after years of court fights had to pay $5.3m to Pennsylvania landowners who say they were cheated out of gas royalties. The company’s earlier CEO, John McClendon, was indicted in 2016 on charges of conspiring to rig bids on oil and gas leases in Oklahoma.Billionaire oil tycoon Harold Hamm, who founded fossil fuel exploration company Continental Resources, was also present. He helped raise money for Trump’s 2016 presidential run and was under consideration to be Trump’s energy secretary, and was reportedly one of the seven top donors who had special seats at Trump’s inauguration. Though he eschewed the former president after his 2020 loss, he donated to his primary campaign in August.View image in fullscreenAsked about the meeting, API spokesperson Andrea Woods said the organization “meets with policymakers and candidates from across the political spectrum on topics important to our industry”. She said the premise of Democrats’ investigation into the meeting is “patently false and an attempt to distract from a needed debate about America’s future – one that requires more energy, including more oil and natural gas”.Amid the scrutiny of last month’s Mar-a-Lago dinner, Trump is continuing to court oil-tied funders. On Tuesday evening, he held a Manhattan fundraising dinner that cost a minimum of $100,000 to attend.Among the event’s hosts, advocacy group Climate Power noted, was John Catsimatidis, the chief executive of the much-scrutinized gas refiner United Refining Company and owner of two grocery chains, a radio station and holding company Red Apple Group.Between 2017 and 2023, United Refining Company’s small refinery in western Pennsylvania was the most dangerous refinery in the country, with federal data showing it reported 10 times the average number of injuries for a refinery – 63% higher than the next-most dangerous facility.The company also reportedly sought to dodge environmental regulations using a process championed by Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.Catsimatidis has also been criticized for neglecting vacant gas-station properties and for blaming gas prices on “open” borders, corporate taxes and worker benefits. The Pennsylvania town home to United Refining pays some of the highest gas prices in the state, despite the presence of the refinery, raising suspicions among some residents about the company’s practices.Trump this week also held a fundraiser hosted by the US senator JD Vance, who is one of the largest recipients of big-oil funding in Congress, and another with Joe Craft, a major Trump donor who owns massive coal producer Alliance Resource Partners. In 2016, Craft reportedly gifted Pruitt courtside basketball tickets after the agency crafted pro-coal regulations. More

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      Trump Georgia case: judge says he hopes to have decision on whether to disqualify Fani Willis in two weeks – live

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      A lawyer for one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case has argued that not removing Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, would undermine public confidence in the legal system.John Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, argued that just “an appearance of a conflict of interest” between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade would be “sufficient” to disqualify her from the election subversion case.Merchant told Judge Scott McAfee that “if the court allows this kind of behavior to go on … the entire public confidence in the system will be shot”, AP reported.If the judge denies the bid to disqualify Willis, “there’s a good chance” an appeals court would overturn that ruling and order a new trial, Merchant argued, it writes.The Republican senator for Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, has endorsed Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primary, marking the first endorsement from a sitting senator for Haley.“I’m proud to endorse Gov Nikki Haley,” Murkowski said in a statement.
      America needs someone with the right values, vigor, and judgment to serve as our next President – and in this race, there is no one better than her.
      The endorsement comes just days before Super Tuesday, when Alaska and several other states will cast their ballots.Murkowski was among seven Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump for his alleged role in the January 6 insurrection.In closing arguments in the hearing to determine whether the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, should be disqualified from handling the Trump election interference case, lawyers for the district attorney’s office argued that the defendants had failed to show any actual conflict of interest.Adam Abbate, a lawyer with the district attorney’s office, accused the defendants’ attorneys of pushing “speculation and conjecture” and trying to harass and embarrass Willis with questions on the witness stand that have nothing to do with the issue at hand, AP reported.“We have absolutely no evidence that Ms Willis received any financial gain or benefit” from the relationship, Abbate told the judge.Judge Scott McAfee has said he hopes to have a resolution on the motion to disqualify the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, from the case she brought against Donald Trump within the next two weeks.The hearing is now adjourned.It’s been a big day for two of Donald Trump’s most significant court cases. In the matter of the classified documents found in his possession at Mar-a-Lago, judge Aileen Cannon sounded skeptical of prosecutors’ request for a July trial, but did not set a new date. In the case alleging meddling in Georgia’s 2020 election, Trump’s attorneys argued for the removal of district attorney Fani Willis, saying failing to do so would undermine faith in the legal system. Willis is now in court as her office is expected to argue why it should remain on the case.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Joe Biden said the United States would airdrop aid into Gaza, and may also make deliveries by sea, while calling on Israel to facilitate access by land.
      Trump said Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, is a potential candidate to be his vice-president.
      Nikki Haley campaigned in Virginia ahead of its primary next week, and was interrupted by protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
      Meanwhile, in Georgia, Fani Willis is back in the courtroom where a judge is considering whether to remove her from the election meddling case she brought against Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants:Joe Biden’s vow to get humanitarian aid into Gaza by air and potentially sea comes after more than 100 people were killed amid a scramble to pick up food in the besieged territory, leading even some of Israel’s allies to demand an investigation. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood, Emma Graham-Harrison and Julian Borger:Israel is facing growing international pressure for an investigation after more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza were killed when desperate crowds gathered around aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire on Thursday.Israel said people died in a crush or were run over by aid lorries although it admitted its troops had opened fire on what it called a “mob”. But the head of a hospital in Gaza said 80% of injured people brought in had gunshot wounds.The UK called for an “urgent investigation and accountability”. In a statement, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, said: “The deaths of people in Gaza waiting for an aid convoy were horrific … this must not happen again.” Israel must allow more aid into Gaza, Lord Cameron added.France called for an independent investigation into the circumstances of the disaster, and Germany said the Israeli army must fully explain what happened. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said: “Every effort must be made to investigate what happened and ensure transparency.”The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 112 people were killed and more than 750 others were injured as crowds rushed towards a convoy of trucks carrying food aid.The United States will work with Jordan to drop food into Gaza by air and will consider make deliveries by sea, Joe Biden said, while noting he will “insist” Israel allow more trucks bearing aid to enter the territory by land.“In the coming days, we are going to join with our friends in Jordan and others in providing airdrops of additional food and supplies into [Gaza] and seek to continue to open up other avenues into [Gaza], including the possibility of a marine corridor to deliver large amounts of humanitarian assistance,” Biden said in the Oval Office. The president initially misspoke, saying the airdrops would be done in Ukraine rather than Gaza.“In addition to expanding deliveries by land, as I said, we’re going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need. No excuses, because the truth is aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough now – it’s nowhere nearly enough. Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line.”In a statement released just as Joe Biden announced the US would airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza, the independent senator Bernie Sanders called on the president to approve such action – while also insisting the onus lay on Israel to help civilians.“The United States, which has helped fund the Israeli military for years, cannot sit back and allow hundreds of thousands of innocent children to starve to death. As a result of Israeli bombing and restrictions on humanitarian aid, the people of Gaza are facing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster. Whether Netanyahu’s rightwing government likes it or not, the United States must immediately begin to airdrop food, water, and other lifesaving supplies into Gaza,” the progressive lawmaker from Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats, wrote.Here’s more:
      But while an airdrop will buy time and save lives, there is no substitute for sustained ground deliveries of what is needed to sustain life in Gaza. Israel MUST open the borders and allow the United Nations to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities. The United States should make clear that failure to do so immediately will lead to a fundamental break in the U.S. – Israeli relationship and the immediate halt of all military aid.
      The US will begin airdropping humanitarian aid into Gaza, Joe Biden has said.Biden said the airdrops will begin in the “coming days”, an announcement that came a day after more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza were killed when desperate crowds gathered around aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire.Donald Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow has argued that Fani Willis should be disqualified from the election interference case because she may have lied to the court about her undisclosed affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.Sadow said Willis’s claim under oath that her relationship with Wade did not begin until after she hired him was not credible, Reuters reports. He told the judge:
      Once you have the appearance of impropriety … the law in Georgia is clear: That’s enough to disqualify.
      Joe Biden has signed into law a short-term stopgap spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown, the White House has said.The bill was approved by the Senate on Thursday following a House vote that narrowly averted a shutdown that was due to occur this weekend.The temporary extension funds the departments of agriculture, transportation, interior and others through 8 March. It funds the Pentagon, homeland security, health and state through 22 March.A lawyer for one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case has argued that not removing Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, would undermine public confidence in the legal system.John Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, argued that just “an appearance of a conflict of interest” between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade would be “sufficient” to disqualify her from the election subversion case.Merchant told Judge Scott McAfee that “if the court allows this kind of behavior to go on … the entire public confidence in the system will be shot”, AP reported.If the judge denies the bid to disqualify Willis, “there’s a good chance” an appeals court would overturn that ruling and order a new trial, Merchant argued, it writes.Judge Scott McAfee has said he might be able to make a decision on the hearing on Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis as he hears closing arguments in the case. CNN quotes him as saying:
      I think we’ve reached the point where I’d like to hear more of how the legal argument apply to what has already been presented, and it may already be possible for me to make a decision without those needing to be material to that decision.
      Closing arguments began about half an hour ago over whether Willis should be disqualified from handling the election interference against Trump because of her romantic relationship with a deputy handling the case. More

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      Trump again presses for delay of classified documents trial until 2025

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      Lawyers for Donald Trump have once again suggested to the federal judge overseeing his criminal case on retaining classified documents that the trial should not take place this year, even as they complied with a court order that forced them to propose a potential start date.On Thursday, the former president reluctantly proposed two trial dates, under orders from US district judge Aileen Cannon: a 12 August trial date for Trump and the Mar-a-Lago club maintenance chief Carlos De Oliveira, and a 9 September trial date for Trump’s valet Walt Nauta.But the nine-page court filing from Trump was clear in its tone and reasoning that a trial should not take place until 2025, claiming that prosecutors were seeking to rush to trial on an unprecedented schedule because they wanted an outcome before the presidential election in November.In a filing submitted at the same time on Thursday, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel Jack Smith asked Cannon to schedule the trial for 8 July for all three defendants, a date that would almost certainly ensure that a verdict get returned before the 2024 election.Trump’s request marked his latest attempt to push back the case, having taken every opportunity to ask Cannon to delay proceedings since he was indicted last year for violating the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice.In their first request to delay the trial indefinitely, Trump claimed he could not get a fair trial while he was running for office, asking the judge to also take into account the political calendar in the months before the election.That argument was repeated again in the new filing, which also claimed that Trump’s status as the presumptive GOP nominee meant prosecutors would be violating justice department rules that prohibit overt investigative steps close to an election if a trial took place this year.Whether Cannon will acquiesce to Trump’s request remains uncertain. Last year, she implicitly rejected Trump’s arguments concerning the election when she set a tentative trial date for May, finding a middle ground between the dueling schedules that Trump and prosecutors had proposed.The judge could again attempt to find a middle ground as she weighs setting a new trial date, with the pre-trial phase of the documents case running roughly four months behind schedule, according to a Guardian analysis.The documents case has been mired in delays as a result of how slowly Cannon has proceeded through the seven-step process laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, which governs how classified documents can be introduced at trial in Espionage Act cases.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump could have an advantage in trying to convince the judge to add further delays, after she expressed concern last year that Trump’s criminal cases in New York and Washington could “collide” with the documents case in Florida because they were scheduled to start between March and May.But Trump’s legal calendar has shifted since Cannon made those remarks in November.Trump’s first criminal case in New York, over hush-money payments made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, will start on 25 March and is expected to last six weeks. Meanwhile, the 2020 election interference case in Washington is effectively delayed indefinitely until the US supreme court decides whether Trump has absolute immunity from prosecution.In that sense, Trump’s legal calendar is now free of conflicts from May onwards, allowing Cannon to adopt either scheduling proposal from Trump or prosecutors, or again set a tentative trial start somewhere between the two suggested dates. More

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      Trump gets access to sealed documents on witness threats in Mar-a-Lago case

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      Special counsel prosecutors have produced to Donald Trump a sealed exhibit about threats to a potential trial witness after the federal judge overseeing his prosecution for retaining classified documents ordered the exhibit turned over despite the prosecutors’ objections, people familiar with the matter said.The exhibit was a point of contention because it detailed a series of threats made against a witness who could testify against the former president at trial, and the matter is the subject of a criminal investigation by a US attorney’s office. Prosecutors had wanted to withhold it from Trump’s lawyers.But the presiding US district judge Aileen Cannon ordered the exhibit that prosecutors in the office of special counsel, Jack Smith, had submitted “ex parte” – or without showing it to the defense – to be transmitted to Trump’s lawyers after reviewing its contents and deciding it did not warrant that protection.The prosecutors complied with the order before a Saturday deadline without seeking a challenge – though the justice department would typically be loath to disclose details of an ongoing investigation, especially as it relates to the primary defendant in this case, legal experts said.The justice department may have decided it was not appealing the order because the exhibit itself is part of a motion from prosecutors asking the judge to reconsider two earlier rulings that would have the effect of making public the identities of dozens of other witnesses who could testify against Trump.At issue is a complicated legal battle that started in January when Trump filed a motion to compel discovery, a request asking the judge to force prosecutors to turn over reams of additional information they believe could help them fight the charges.The motion to compel was partially redacted and submitted with 70 accompanying exhibits, many of which were sealed and redacted. But Trump’s lawyers asked that those sealed filings be made public because many of the names included in the exhibits were people already known to have worked on the documents investigation.Prosecutors asked the judge to deny Trump’s request to unseal his exhibits, using broad arguments that they would reveal the identity of potential witnesses, two sub-compartments of what is described as “Signals” intelligence, and details about a separate probe run by the FBI.The special counsel’s team also asked to submit their own set of sealed exhibits when they filed their formal response to Trump’s motion to compel. The government’s exhibits involved memos of interviews with witnesses and likely testimony from witnesses, according to the three-page filing.Cannon in February issued two rulings: one on Trump’s request and one on prosecutors’ request.With Trump, the judge found that personal identifying information of witnesses and the information about “Signals” intelligence should remain under seal, but everything else could be public. And with prosecutors, she granted their request to file their own exhibits under seal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe twin rulings appear to have caught prosecutors by surprise. They have previously been successful in keeping materials that could reveal witness identities confidential, and they formally asked Cannon to reconsider those orders.A motion for reconsideration is significant because if Cannon denies the challenge, it could pave the way for prosecutors to seek an injunctive appeal at the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit using a writ of mandamus – essentially, an order commanding Cannon to reverse her decision.Cannon has previously drawn scrutiny from the 11th circuit. Before Trump was indicted, she upended the underlying criminal investigation by issuing a series of favorable rulings to Trump before the appeals court ruled she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene.As part of prosecutors’ motion for reconsideration, they asked to submit alongside their court filings a third set of exhibits under seal and ex parte. Cannon agreed, pending her personal review of their contents. On Friday, she ruled they should not be ex parte – and should be turned over to Trump, as well. More

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      Trump seeks access to secret court filings in Mar-a-Lago documents case

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      Lawyers for Donald Trump, defending him against charges that he retained national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago club, have asked a federal judge to grant them unprecedented access to the classified information that prosecutors want to redact before it gets introduced at trial.“Cleared counsel for President Trump seek attorneys’-eyes-only access to these filings so that we can challenge the [special counsel’s] assertions in adversarial proceedings,” the Trump legal team said in the 18-page filing.The request – asking for access to the US government’s sealed court filings that are off limits to defense counsel by default under statute – is significant because even a partial ruling in Trump’s favor by the US district judge Aileen Cannon could trigger the first appeal in the case.Such an appeal to the 11th circuit would be interlocutory, meaning it would have to be adjudicated before trial, almost certainly delaying other pre-trial deadlines and therefore the May 2024 trial date, which is already estimated to be running about four months behind schedule.The Trump motion was also widely regarded by legal experts as extraordinary because it turned on its face the point of the complex procedures governing how classified documents can be made public in criminal cases without risking national security.Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in June with violating the Espionage Act by retaining documents about the likes of US nuclear secrets, which means his case will be tried under the rules laid out in the seven-section Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa.At issue in the Trump case is the Cipa section 4 filing submitted by special counsel prosecutors. Under section 4, the government can file a motion to redact classified information that would qualify as discovery but would not be “relevant or helpful” to defense counsel.The goal of section 4 is to eliminate what was previously known as the “graymail” problem in national security cases, where defense counsel threatened to reveal classified information at trial, betting that the government would prefer to drop the charges rather than risk disclosure.It remains unclear what prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith want to redact, other than the fact that it encompasses “four categories of especially sensitive classified information”, according to recently unsealed filings.The judge technically has discretion under the statute to decide how to proceed with section 4 filings, but legal experts said the Trump motion, asking to see everything, amounted to a request to defeat the entire purpose of Cipa section 4 to protect against the threat of graymail.Trump’s lawyers essentially argued that special counsel prosecutors should be forced to share what classified information they want to redact because the criminal justice system broadly disfavors filings that are not shown to defense counsel, and because they have the necessary clearances.The Trump team also made a novel argument about how the development of laws granting greater access to national security matters – like having motions to suppress evidence in the secret foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) courts – should prompt Cannon to consider creating new precedent.The Trump legal team’s motion also asked for the judge to order special counsel prosecutors to file redacted versions of their Cipa section 4 filing on the public docket, which could shed light on the government’s legal arguments about the relevance of some of the classified information. More

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      Trump classified documents trial running about four months behind schedule

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      Donald Trump’s trial on charges that he retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and obstructed justice is running about four months behind schedule after the federal judge presiding in the case in Florida declined to set a crucial filing deadline until at least next March.The US district judge Aileen Cannon put off setting a deadline for Trump to submit a notice about what classified information he intends to use at trial – currently set for May – until after a hearing next year that almost certainly precludes the pre-trial process from finishing in time.Trump was indicted this summer with violating the Espionage Act when he illegally retained classified documents after he left office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago club, including defying a grand jury subpoena.But the fact that Trump was charged with retaining national defense information means his case will be tried under the complex rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa, which governs how those documents can be used in court.At issue is the sequential nature of the seven-stage Cipa process, meaning each previous section has to be completed before the case can proceed to the next section. A delay halfway through the process invariably has the net effect of delaying the entire schedule leading to trial.The judge last week indicated she was inclined to delay the start of the trial at any rate, expressing concern that Trump’s criminal cases in New York and Washington could “collide” with the documents case in Florida because they are all scheduled to commence between March and May.But even on a purely logistical basis, the May trial date is almost certain to be pushed back after Cannon last week issued a delayed pre-trial schedule and then effectively cemented those delays on Thursday with her latest order.The revised timetable itself delayed a series of crucial Cipa dates. Most notably, Cannon will not hold the Cipa section 4 hearing – to decide whether the special counsel Jack Smith can redact certain information from the classified documents turned over to Trump – until February, instead of the original October date.On Thursday, the judge made her most consequential decision yet when she rejected a request from the special counsel that she set a deadline for Trump to submit his Cipa section 5 notice, writing that she would only address that at a subsequent 1 March hearing to decide future scheduling matters.The ruling was significant because, based on an analysis of Cannon’s initial and revised scheduling orders, Trump’s deadline to file the section 5 notice concerning what classified information he intends to use in his defense at trial may not come until potentially next April.In her original scheduling order that projected the current May trial date, the judge allowed Trump to take 32 days between the end of the section 4 hearing and having to file his section 5 notice.Should Cannon allow Trump to have the same 32 days from the end of the 1 March hearing to submit his section 5 notice, that would suggest a new deadline of roughly the end of March or the start of April – an overall delay of roughly four months.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe order in that sense amounted to a victory for Trump, who has made it no secret that his overarching legal strategy is to seek to delay the trial, ideally beyond the 2024 election in November, in the hopes that winning could enable him to potentially pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.That new timetable almost certainly leaves insufficient time to complete the Cipa process, according to Espionage Act experts, because the final sections, dealing with the admissibility of redacted classified documents into evidence at trial, are typically the most onerous.Section 5 itself can be lengthy because the defense often files a notice that the government finds too vague, and the Trump legal team would likely be no exception. The special counsel would have to challenge the vagueness of Trump’s notice, which would add weeks of litigation.In section 6(a), the judge holds a hearing to decide the relevance and admissibility of the classified information Trump wants to disclose at trial. But a final ruling might not come for weeks afterwards, not least because Cannon may choose to look through all of the classified documents herself to reach a decision.If Cannon decides at her discretion that Trump can use all the classified information he wants at trial, section 6(c) says the special counsel can propose to Cannon that Trump instead use unclassified “substitutes” or, more commonly, redacted versions of the documents.But Trump could challenge any redactions on the basis that a jury could draw a prejudicial inference from them. If Cannon sides with Trump, the special counsel can appeal under section 7 to the 11th circuit. If the appeals court also rules against the government, the attorney general must decide whether to drop elements of the case. More

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      Judge signals she could delay key dates in Trump’s classified documents trial

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      The federal judge presiding in Donald Trump’s criminal case related to his retention of national security documents at Mar-a-Lago appeared inclined to delay the scheduling of the trial, expressing concern that the timetable would clash with Trump’s 2020 election subversion trial in Washington.The US district judge Aileen Cannon did not specify what changes she would make to the pre-trial timetable at a hearing on Thursday, but signaled she would make adjustments to certain deadlines – which could have the net effect of pushing back the start of the trial.Trump has made it no secret that his overarching legal strategy in his criminal cases is to seek delay, ideally beyond the 2024 election in November, in the hopes that winning re-election could enable him to potentially pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.The prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith explicitly complained to the judge that Trump’s requests to postpone some deadlines because of complications with the discovery process under the Classified Information Procedures Act amounted to a request to delay the trial.But the judge concluded the hearing by saying she would enter an order as soon as possible outlining “reasonable adjustments” to the timetable after repeatedly mentioning that she believed the delays in turning over the classified discovery to Trump’s team would cause the cases to clash.“I’m having a hard time seeing how this work can be accomplished in this compressed period of time,” Cannon said.The judge’s observation came in response to Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, arguing that the current pre-trial timetable in the classified documents case was unworkable as a result of the delays with the classified discovery and the multiple trials scheduled for next year.Trump faces three criminal trials between the start of March and the end of May, starting in New York for hush money payments before the 2016 election, then in Washington for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and finally in Florida for his retention of classified documents.The confluence of those three trials was too onerous on Trump and his lawyers, Blanche argued and, in a particularly bold moment, suggested it was the fault of prosecutors that the timetable had to be abandoned – because it was they who had chosen to bring two cases against Trump.Blanche also took advantage of the judge’s earlier skepticism with the special counsel’s lead lawyer, Jay Bratt, when he argued there was no reason to abandon the current pre-trial timetable because the concerns were hypothetical and they should strive to make the May trial date.The judge had scheduled the hearing after the Trump legal team asked to postpone a series of deadlines related to the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa, the complex rules governing how classified documents are introduced at trial in national security cases.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump was charged with retaining national defense information – including US nuclear secrets and plans for US military retaliation in the event of an attack – and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them, which is why the case is being governed by Cipa rules.The Trump legal team had argued that delays with the production of the classified discovery meant they needed more time to identify what additional discovery requests they wanted to make before the special counsel asked to make redactions to the classified documents being turned over.In addition to the delays with the classified discovery, lawyers for Trump and his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira complained that they were also having trouble accessing voluminous amounts of surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago they received in unclassified discovery.The lawyers for Trump and his co-defendants told the judge they knew what clips that the special counsel had identified as pertinent for their defense work – the period in 2022 when boxes of classified documents were moved at Mar-a-Lago – but that they needed to review all of the footage. More

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      Trump again requests delay in Mar-a-Lago documents trial until after 2024 election

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      Lawyers for Donald Trump are asking a federal judge for a second time to postpone until after the 2024 election his trial on charges that he illegally retained dozens of national defense documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and conspired to obstruct the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.The request, made in a 12-page court filing to US district judge Aileen Cannon on Wednesday night, proposed delaying the start of the trial from May until at least mid-November – leaning into the justice department’s complaint last week that Trump was trying to “re-litigate” the trial date.Trump has tried to delay the classified documents trial ever since he was charged by prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith, including asking to postpone setting a trial date indefinitely as they worked through complex procedural and evidentiary rules in the case.The efforts are the result of Trump’s bet that if he were to win the election and the trials were delayed, he could direct his attorney general to drop the cases. Even if he lost, the closer the trials were to the election, the more he could allege the prosecutions were politically motivated.The dueling complaints from both sides set up another test for Cannon, a Trump appointee who came under widespread criticism last year during the criminal investigation after she issued a series of favorable decisions to the former president before her rulings were struck down on appeal.In their renewed attempt to push back the trial date, Trump’s lawyers accused prosecutors of failing to meet their statutory obligations to turn over nine of the 32 documents Trump was charged with retaining, in violation of the Espionage Act, as part of the discovery process.The filing argued that the delay in getting access to those documents, which prosecutors said last week were so sensitive that they could not be stored in a special facility in Florida to review such materials and were removed to Washington, necessitated revising the schedule for the case.Trump’s lawyers added that they needed to push back the trial schedule because the secure facility being constructed for the judge to review the classified documents in Fort Pierce, where her courthouse is located, was running more than three months behind schedule.“The special counsel’s office has failed to make very basic arrangements in this district for the handling of the relevant classified information,” wrote Trump’s lawyers Chris Kise and Todd Blanche. “The requested adjournments are necessary to allow time for these facilities to be established.”Trump’s lawyers also hit back at prosecutors for previously suggesting that the former president was trying to weaponize the complex procedures for using classified information at trial – known as Cipa, short for the Classified Information Procedures Act – to buy time.In particular, and previewing a potential defense at trial that some of the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago could not be charged because they were not “closely held” materials, Trump’s lawyers argued prosecutors needed to say whether they had tangential information that could be exculpatory.The materials are known as “prudential search requests”, a process where national security prosecutors check with the US intelligence community about the nature of sensitive documents they are considering charging.“Because some of the documents at issue address topics that are covered in open-source materials,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, “it is extremely likely that some USIC holdings undercut the Office’s contention that documents dating back to 2017 contain information that was closely held.”The Trump legal team also cited Trump’s increasingly crowded courtroom calendar as a further reason why the classified documents trial needed to be delayed, arguing that neither they nor the former president could be in two places at once.The issue stems from Trump’s other federal trial, in which he is accused by special counsel prosecutors of conspiring the subvert the 2020 election results, being scheduled to start on 4 March. But delays in that case could lead to overlap with the start of the classified documents trial set for 20 May. More