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Former President Donald Trump’s legal team filed court papers Wednesday asking a judge to push the federal classified documents case back to “in or after mid-November 2024.”
The trial on charges of allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence, which is among four criminal cases the Republican former president is facing, is slated for May 20, 2024, in Florida. Special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges against the former president, has rejected President Trump’s previous efforts to push back dates in the case and will likely do so again in response to his latest court filing.
“The Special Counsel’s Office has not provided some of the most basic discovery in the case,” they said in their motion. “Given the current schedule, we cannot understate the prejudice to President Trump arising from his lack of access to these critical materials months after they should have been produced.”
They also cited problems with the sensitive compartmented information facility in Florida where prosecutors and defense lawyers are to review the classified documents, saying it would require the former president to be in “two places at once” in 2024. They noted that President Trump is slated to go on trial in March 2024 on separate federal charges in Washington, D.C., in connection to his activity after the 2020 election.
“There is no good reason to continue on the current path. Therefore, President Trump respectfully submits that the adjournment requests should be granted,” lawyers Christopher Kise and Todd Blanche wrote Wednesday evening to Judge Cannon.
The defense lawyers said they have access to only a “small, temporary facility” in Miami to review classified documents, an arrangement that they say has slowed the process.
“Copies of the classified discovery have not been transported to the Miramar facility, which we also understand has not yet been approved for review and storage of the classified discovery,” which “has delayed President Trump’s personal review of the classified discovery under procedures that the Court approved on September 12, 2023,” according to the filing.
Mr. Kise, one of the former president’s attorneys, is also among the Trump attorneys representing him in his New York civil fraud trial, which is currently ongoing. He also has not been fully cleared to review the classified documents in the Florida case, the filing said.
“The demands of the Special Counsel’s Office must give way to the constitutional rights of the defendants and the interests of judicial economy,” the Trump lawyers wrote.
Prosecutors with the special counsel last week suggested that the Trump team was seeking unreasonable delays in the case. Though they acknowledged a “slightly longer than anticipated timeframe” for certain procedural steps, the prosecutors said it was false to accuse them of delaying the production of evidence in the case.
The Justice Department says it has so far provided about 1.28 million pages of unclassified documents and has turned over the majority of classified evidence that it anticipates producing. By Friday, prosecutors said, they will provide much of the remaining outstanding classified evidence.
“This production will include certain materials that Defendants have described as outstanding, including audio recordings of interviews and information related to the classification reviews conducted in the case,” prosecutors wrote.
The indictment claims President Trump improperly retained classified documents taken with him after he left the White House in 2021 and then repeatedly obstructed government efforts to get the records back. That led to an unprecedented FBI raid that targeted his Florida estate in August 2022 weeks before Mr. Smith was named as the special prosecutor in the case.
The defense lawyers say Trump’s two co-defendants in the case, his valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, are joining in the request.
The federal indictment in Florida accuses President Trump of 40 counts, including the willful retention of classified information, making false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He has pleaded not guilty and has denied any wrongdoing.
The case is among four in total targeting the former president as he also faces charges in Georgia, Washington, and New York City. A separate defamation trial involving writer E. Jean Carroll is scheduled for January 2024.
