WASHINGTON: A federal judge in Florida has scheduled a trial date for next May for former President Donald Trump in a case charging him with illegally retaining hundreds of classified documents.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020 will preside over the case. Her selection to handle the Trump case was random, blindly drawn from the pool of several active federal judges in the Justice Department’s southern Florida district.
May 20, 2024, trial date, set Friday by Judge Cannon, is a compromise between a request from prosecutors to set the trial for this December and a bid by defence lawyers to put it off indefinitely until sometime after the 2024 presidential election.
If the date holds, it would follow close on the heels of a separate New York trial for Trump on dozens of state charges of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged hush money payment to a porn actor. It also means the trial would not start until deep into the presidential nominating calendar and probably well after the Republican nominee is clear — though before that person is officially nominated at the Republican National Convention.
In pushing back the trial from the Dec. 11 start date that the Justice Department had asked for, Cannon wrote that “the Government’s proposed schedule is atypically accelerated and inconsistent with ensuring a fair trial.”
She agreed with defence lawyers that the amount of evidence that would need to be sifted through before the trial, including classified information, was “voluminous and likely to increase in the normal course as trial approaches.”
“The Court finds that the interests of justice served by this continuance outweigh the best interest of the public and Defendants in a speedy trial,” Cannon wrote.
In a statement referring to the Department of Justice, the Trump campaign called Cannon’s order “a major setback to the DOJ’s crusade to deny President Trump a fair legal process. The extensive schedule allows President Trump and his legal team to continue fighting this empty hoax.”
Trump could yet face additional trials in the coming year. He revealed this week that he had received a letter informing him that he was a target of a separate Justice Department investigation into efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election, an indication that charges could be coming soon. And prosecutors in Georgia plan to announce charging decisions within weeks in an investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to subvert the vote in that state.
The trial before Cannon would take place in a federal courthouse in Fort Pierce.
Charges against Trump
It arises from a 38-count indictment last month, filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, that accused Trump of willfully hoarding classified documents, including top secret records, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach and conspiring with his valet, Walt Nauta, to hide them from investigators who demanded them back. Trump and Nauta have both pleaded not guilty.
The former president took the documents with him as he left the White House in 2021, against US law which requires all presidential records to be handed over to the National Archives.
Prosecutors say Trump was given multiple opportunities to return the documents and they raided Mar-a-Lago in August last year after obtaining evidence that he knowingly retained more than 100 classified files. Boxes and folders with the secret documents were hidden in Trump’s private office, a ballroom, a bathroom, his bedroom and a storage room, according to the indictment.
On at least two occasions, prosecutors alleged, Trump showed classified documents on US military operations and plans to people not cleared to see them, at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.
“The classified documents Trump stored in the boxes included information regarding defence and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries,” the indictment said.
“The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources,” according to the indictment.
The indictment lists 38 separate counts against Trump. They include 31 counts of “willful retention of national defence information,” each count relating to a specific document he kept.
The documents listed included information on US nuclear programs and potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack, along with plans for retaliation, according to the indictment. A conviction on each of the 31 “willful retention” charges carries up to 10 years in prison.
The six other charges include conspiracy to obstruct justice, punishable by up to 20 years in prison; withholding a document or record, which also carries a potential 20-year sentence; and making false statements.
Trump’s personal aide, Walt Nauta, will stand trial together with him. Nauta was named as a co-conspirator and charged with six counts for helping Trump hide documents in Mar-a-Lago.
Trump and Nauta both entered pleas of not guilty. Trump claims that as a former president, he had a right to retain documents. He also has said that using his authority as president he had declassified the documents in question, though he has not offered evidence to support that claim.
(With inputs from AP, AFP)