Trump’s Classified Docs Trial Date Postponed
Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen M. Cannon cited issues around classified evidence that needs to be addressed before a court date is finalized
Donald Trump‘s trial start date over his mishandling of classified documents has been pushed back thanks to a Florida judge overseeing the case. On Tuesday, District Judge Aileen M. Cannon indefinitely postponed the trial, previously scheduled for May 20, increasing the odds that Trump’s hush money trial in New York may be the only one he faces prior to the election in November.
In her order Tuesday, Cannon made it clear that she intends to resolve multiple pending pre-trial issues that both parties will have to meet before a new trial date is set.
“The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming — would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury,” Cannon wrote.
Cannon, who the former president appointed to the federal circuit, said in March that the timeline proposed by prosecutors for a trial this summer was “unrealistic.”
In April, Special Counsel Jack Smith submitted a scathing filing over her requests for jury instructions in the classified docs case. Smith accused the judge of operating on an “unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise” when she requested that the parties draft different versions of their proposed jury instructions based on their competing interpretations of laws governing classified materials and presidential records.
