Topline
Former President Donald Trump received another win on Monday in his bid to delay his criminal trial for allegedly mishandling White House documents, as U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely extended a key deadline in the case—the latest move by the judge to slow-walk the trial, which she has yet to set a new date for.
Former President Donald Trump returns from a break during his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on ... [+]
Key Facts
Cannon, a Trump appointee, issued a brief order Monday night pausing a deadline—originally set for Thursday—that requires Trump to disclose what classified materials his legal team plans to introduce at trial.
That filing is important because it tees up a potential legal battle over what classified materials can be used at trial, former prosecutor Joyce Vance noted, which The New York Times points out could take months in itself to resolve before the case can go to trial.
Trump’s lawyers pushed for a delay earlier on Monday, alleging Special Counsel Jack Smith and government prosecutors mishandled evidence by moving documents out of order within the boxes that the FBI recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Cannon’s Monday order was the latest in a series of deadlines the judge has pushed back as the criminal case has moved forward, which has resulted in the trial getting delayed.
The trial was initially supposed to begin on May 20, and while it’s clear it’s impossible for that date to hold, Cannon has not yet issued a new trial date, even after holding a hearing on the issue in March.
The Justice Department has not yet responded to a request for comment on Cannon’s Monday order, though prosecutors previously said in a court filing they don’t believe any shuffling of documents within the boxes would justify delaying the disclosure of what documents should be used at trial, after Trump’s aide and co-defendant Walt Nauta made a similar argument to Trump’s Monday filing.
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What To Watch For
Cannon said in her order Monday that she’ll set new deadlines for the classified documents disclosures, though it’s uncertain when that order will come or how far out the deadlines will be. Trump’s lawyers said in their filing Monday asking for a delay that they intend to file additional motions based on the DOJ moving documents within the boxes, including asking Cannon to sanction prosecutors and asking for the charges against Trump to be dismissed “if the [DOJ]
cannot prove in a reliable way how it seized and handled the key evidence in the case.”What We Don’t Know
When Trump’s trial will start. It’s unclear when Cannon plans to rule on when the new trial date will be, though it’s likely to be soon given the current start date of May 20. At a hearing in March, prosecutors asked Cannon to reschedule the trial for July, while Trump’s attorneys pushed for the trial to take place after the November election—or otherwise schedule it for August if that’s not possible. It remains to be seen whether Cannon will end up scheduling it for the summer or push the case back even later, particularly as months have now passed since her deliberations on the trial date began. Trump has sought to delay his trials until after the election, given that should he win back the presidency, he could install prosecutors at the DOJ who would drop the charges against him.
Big Number
325. That’s the total number of classified documents the FBI has retrieved from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office, 103 of which investigators took when they searched Mar-a-Lago in August 2022. (Trump handed over the others either voluntarily or in response to a subpoena.) The materials with classified markings make up a small fraction of the more than 11,000 White House materials investigators have seized from Mar-a-Lago overall.
Key Background
Trump has been indicted on 40 federal felony charges in the documents case, which is one of four criminal cases that’s been brought against him. The charges stem from Trump bringing White House documents back to Mar-a-Lago with him and allegedly refusing to turn most of them over, even when subpoenaed to do so. Prosecutors allege Trump purposefully concealed documents from his lawyers and government investigators in order to keep the DOJ from retrieving them, and prosecutors charged him with obstruction as well as willfully retaining national defense information. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which he has decried as a “witch hunt.” Cannon has drawn widespread scrutiny for her handling of Trump’s case since she was first named to oversee it, after the Trump appointee previously sided with the former president in a dispute over the documents even before the charges were brought. Cannon’s ruling, which ordered a third-party “special master” to review all the documents that prosecutors seized, was widely criticized by legal experts and ultimately overturned by an appeals court.
