Trump defense seeks indefinite delay in Florida trial, arguing case a ‘challenge’ to democracy
In a new court motion, the defense team for former President Donald Trump is urging a federal judge to postpone the government’s proposed trial date of Dec. 11 indefinitely, arguing that the Justice Department’s push to prosecute Trump as soon as possible is “untenable” because of the breadth and complexity of the highly sensitive classified documents case.
The motion, filed late Monday in South Florida’s federal court, also is an effort to seize the narrative, trying to portray the former president’s criminal charges over the handling of classified documents as a politically fraught legal battle between Trump and his successor, Joe Biden, as both pursue another run for the White House in 2024.
Although Trump’s lawyers don’t propose a trial date in their filing, the clear suggestion is to delay any trial for the front-runner for the GOP nomination until after the presidential campaign season next year.
“This extraordinary case presents a serious challenge to both the fact and perception of our American democracy,” Trump’s lawyers Christopher Kise and Todd Blanche wrote in a motion joined by his co-defendant in the case, the former president’s personal aide, Walt Nauta.
“The Court now presides over a prosecution advanced by the administration of a sitting President against his chief political rival, himself a leading candidate for the Presidency of the United States,” they wrote in the motion before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is based in the Fort Pierce courthouse. “Therefore, a measured consideration and timeline that allows for a careful and complete review of the procedures that led to this indictment and the unprecedented legal issues presented herein best serves the interests of the Defendants and the public.”
Ruling on the motion will be the first major decision for Cannon, a Trump appointee whose decision last year to appoint a special master to review documents seized by the FBI from the president’s Palm Beach estate drew criticism from many legal experts. Her decision, which would have delayed the case, was later reversed on appeal.
Legal experts who have been following the indictment charging Trump with willfully retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and conspiring to obstruct justice with Nauta predicted after it was returned on June 8 by a Miami federal grand jury that the defense would seek to delay the former president’s trial against the wishes of the Justice Department’s special counsel Jack Smith. His team, in a court reply filed Thursday, said “there is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion, and the Defendants provide none.”
Experts noted that the key factors on the trial date include not only the unprecedented criminal case against a former president heading into another possible election, but also the fact that Trump is scheduled for another criminal trial next March in New York involving his alleged payment of hush-money payments to a porn actress during the 2016 campaign.
“Trump’s motion clearly is a meritorious argument to continue the classified documents trial beyond December,” said Miami defense attorney Joseph DeMaria, who once served on the Justice Department’s organized crime strike force in South Florida.
DeMaria said the judge, Cannon, will now have to address the “speedy trial” rule in the Southern District of Florida that takes both the defendant’s and the public’s interests into consideration. Cannon had previously set a trial date for Aug. 14, but then the special counsel urged the judge to push it back to December — prompting Trump’s defense time to ask for another delay. Speedy trial rules allow for a defendant to face a jury of his peers within 70 days of his arraignment, which for Trump was held on June 13 and for Nauta on July 6.
DeMaria said it is now apparent from the latest court motion that Trump’s legal team hopes to delay the trial beyond the 2024 presidential election.
“It appears Trump’s defense team is looking to push this trial past the election so that if he beats Biden and is elected, he can stop his own prosecution,” he said.
Although it remains unclear how Cannon will decide this critical dispute over the trial date, the judge on Tuesday decided to postpone a key pre-trial hearing on the handling of classified documents that was set for Friday. The special counsel wanted to stay on track with the hearing, while lawyers for Trump and Nauta sought to delay it. Cannon pushed the hearing back to next Tuesday, July 18, in her Fort Pierce courtroom.
Cannon has already chosen a government security officer to act as a custodian of the hundreds of classified records that were obtained from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and club through a subpoena and a search warrant last year. The name of that security officer remains a secret under court seal.
So far, according to the latest filing by Trump’s lawyers, the special counsel’s team has turned a mountain of evidence: more than 428,300 records totaling 833,450 pages, including 122,650 emails with attachments, 305,670 documents from more than 90 different sources, and 57 terrabytes of compressed raw CCV footage spanning nine months.
Defense lawyers have zeroed on that voluminous discovery, along with the daunting task of reviewing classified materials involving U.S. weapons, defense and nuclear programs, as the main reason for requiring more time to prepare for trial.
Trump’s attorneys indicate that they plan to seek dismissal of the 38-count indictment, which includes 31 counts accusing the former president of deliberately withholding classified materials in violation of the Espionage Act, while challenging the special counsel’s legal basis for the historic case against the former president.
“The intersection between the Presidential Records Act and the various criminal statutes at issue has never been addressed by any court, and in the Defendants’ view, will result in a dismissal of the indictment,” Trump’s lawyers Kise and Blanche argue in the court filing, without providing any rationale.
“Additional significant matters include the classification status of the documents and their purported impact on national security interests, the propriety of utilizing any ‘secret’ evidence in a case of this nature, and the potential inability to select an impartial jury during a national Presidential election,” they write in the filing.
“Moreover, the extensive and voluminous discovery, coupled with the challenges presented by the purportedly classified material that has yet to be produced, will require significant time for review and assimilation.”
This story was originally published July 11, 2023 at 10:17 AM.
