This New Deadline Set by Judge May Cause a Possible Delay to Trump’s Classified Documents Case Trial

Former President Donald Trump is already battling with a slew of legal charges against him. Presently, he’s amid a lengthy legal kerfuffle concerning his Civil Fraud Case Trial in New York and if found guilty, he is expected to pay a fine of $250 Million according to The New York Times. Furthermore, another interesting case that’s been in the limelight is his ‘Classified Documents Case’ which was uncovered earlier this year. As per sources, prosecutors allege that Trump retained highly classified documents after his exit from The White House back in 2021. Trump’s legal council has long vied for a delay of the hearing since he was first indicted. Perhaps they may just be getting what they wanted: a possible delay in the trial. 

According to The Guardian, Judge Aileen Cannon on Friday has pushed numerous deadlines for Trump to file pre-trial motions. Judge Cannon appears to have decided to wait until the very first hearing scheduled for March 2024 to make an official decision on the commencement of the trial for Trump’s case. This turn of events has proved to be positive for the former President due to the constant effort to delay the trial until Trump hopefully gets re-elected as President in the upcoming 2024 Elections. If re-elected he could use this golden opportunity to get the Departments of Justice to drop the charges against him. 

The reason this slight delay is a major plus for Team Trump is primarily credited to ‘CIPA’ or the Classified Information Procedures Act. As per The Department of Justice website, this is the very same Act that Trump is going to be tried for given his involvement with the aforementioned case. As per sources, CIPA is reportedly a seven-stage procedure that determines whether or not the “classified documents” hold merit in a court of law. In short, it’ll prove if those documents could be admissible or not.

Each sequential step involved must be completed with great precision and no errors given the gravity of the case. If even a certain step is slowed down, it could result in a domino effect wherein the processes for the remaining ones also lag. Furthermore, it could affect the original date the trial was set to begin. 

Judge Cannon released a timetable that clearly states the alteration of dates, pushing deadlines by several months in comparison to the original one. The original timetable highlights the date of trial to begin by May 2024. This puts prosecutors from Special Council Jack Smith’s office at a slight disadvantage because one of their major pleas would perhaps not be considered.

Smith’s prosecutors wanted their CIPA Section 4 Motion: A motion urging a judge to reportedly redact some data from the classified documents when handed over to Trump; to be considered until December rather than October. The aftermath may appear to be rather unclear at this early juncture before the actual trial. However, how Smith, Trump, and their respective councils would further proceed remains to be seen.