The Florida judge presiding over the case against former President Donald Trump involving classified documents has temporarily halted all litigation concerning materials attached to Trump’s indictment while she considers postponing the trial.
On Friday, Trump appointee and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon filed an electronic order granting the former president’s defense team’s request to delay the trial until after the 2024 election. On May 20th, the trial will begin, Yahoo News reported.
After discovering classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed 40 felony charges against Trump, including 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information. He has entered a not-guilty plea on all counts.
In her order, Cannon addresses several upcoming October deadlines for Trump and his legal team to review how they plan to handle the classified materials at the heart of the case. Special Counsel Jack Smith asked for a hearing to be scheduled under CIPA to determine which classified materials could be used and released to the public during the trial.
Trump’s lawyers claimed in a motion filed last week that the defense team would not be ready for trial on the current schedule because of delays in obtaining access to classified records cited in Smith’s indictment.
In a court filing made last week, federal prosecutors acknowledged that the case had taken “a slightly longer than anticipated timeframe” and indicated their support for a brief extension. The pre-trial schedule was strongly opposed by Smith’s office.
Smith is not happy with a delay in his classified documents case.
The prosecutor said in a motion that Trump’s request “threatens to upend the entire schedule…and that amounts to a motion to postpone the trial until May 20, 2024.”
Smith was responding to Trump’s legal team’s claim that pre-trial hearing deadlines should be extended so that they could deal with legal issues that had arisen, such as an application for a protective order relating to Trump’s comments about witnesses and jurors.
Trump is accused of illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Smith stated that, while he was open to a brief delay, Trump was asking for too much time.
“Instead, defendants argue for a schedule that would delay proceedings by over three months,” the motion stated.
Smith said that Trump’s arguments, “overstate the complexity of anticipated pre-trial discovery litigation, and are meritless in any event. The defendants already have more than sufficient discovery to provide the Court with a description of the type of information they consider relevant and helpful. The defendants’ motion can and should be denied on this ground alone.”
Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan is calling for the GOP to focus on winning some policies rather than squabbling over budget items.
During an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo, Jordan noted that there’s less than a week until the government funding deadline. The House has only introduced four appropriations bills to establish the government’s budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. There are eight more that have yet to move forward.
The Ohio Republican also suggested possibly including something in a spending bill that may eliminate or reduce funding for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s operation.
“Well, there’s been, there’s been a fight over the number. What level we’re going to fund at? Look, I want to reduce spending too. I know what the debt problem is. But in a divided government, there’s been a number that’s agreed on to fund the government,” Jordan said.
“And frankly, it’s less than the year before, which is, which is a huge step when you got divided when, when, when we control one-half of one-third of the government by five votes. And we’ve got to negotiate a number that’s less than Joe Biden and the Democrats spent last year. I think that’s a win. So let’s hold on to that number if we can. There’s some, there’s some debate within our conference, and I get that, let’s hold on to that number if we can. But let’s win the policies,” he added.
“The other policy frankly, we should consider putting on these bills is the policy that says you can’t, you can’t fund the attack on your political opponent, which is exactly what Joe Biden is doing when he’s funding this Jack Smith operation going after his political opponent,” Jordan continued.
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