Donald Trump Has Time on His Side in Testing Documents

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Photo: Sean Rayford/Getty Images

In his latest effort to throw sand into the machinery of justice, Donald Trump is trying to delay his trial indefinitely on federal charges stemming from his alleged mishandling of classified documents. As CBS News explained:

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump and longtime Trump aide Walt Nauta asked Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday night to delay setting a trial date for their federal case in Florida.

Continuing the litigation during the pendency of a Presidential election cycle where opposing candidates are effectively (if not literally) directly opposed to each other in this action would create extraordinary challenges, argued the former president and current Republican presidential candidate lawyers.

Team Trump cited complex document discovery issues, problems with impaneling an impartial jury, and the unprecedented nature of a criminal trial involving agents of competing presidential candidates, as grounds for to indefinite delay in the proceedings.

The motion reflects Trump’s underlying strategy he has pursued for years in the ongoing litigation resulting from his career in the dilatory guerrilla litigation business. In this case, Trump aims to win the election in 2024 and thwart the prosecutors by removing their chains or even pardoning himself. But the case poses some major challenges. For one thing, key elements of the case are governed by an obscure statute known as the Classified Information Procedures Act, which provides for ongoing negotiations between the parties and multiple rulings by the trial judge on the use and disclosure of information. classified document. For another, jury selection can involve an unusually long process because of the notoriety of the case and the defendant. Chief prosecutor and special counsel Jack Smith has already requested a delay in the trail date until Dec. 11, about a month before the Iowa presidential caucuses.

Many of the controversies leading up to this trial revolve around the trial judge, Florida federal district judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee widely thought to have done him some extraordinary favors during of initial legal maneuvering after the August 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. Now he will lead this motion to put the test in slow motion, as reported by the New York Times:

Judges have wide latitude to set schedules for trials, and scheduling orders are generally not subject to appeal to higher courts. That said, due to the extraordinary nature of Mr. Trumps and the potential implications of the delay, prosecutors under Mr. Smith theorizes that there is justification to challenge a scheduling decision made by Judge Cannon in the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

Even if Cannon denies Team Trumps motion, and/or is ordered to do so by the 11th Circuit, he will control the pace of the trial amid ongoing political turmoil and renewed dilatory tactics by former presidents’ lawyers. And similar issues will affect the timing of criminal trials still expected in New York, Washington, and Atlanta, though it’s likely the judges presiding over those cases will be as defendant-friendly as Cannon (although it is possible, of course, that he would make a point of showing some independence in a case that could have a major impact on perceptions of the impartiality of the federal judiciary).

All in all, the sweet spot for Trump is likely to be under the threat of conviction or as he and his supporters see it, political persecution throughout the 2024 election cycle without having to face the conviction himself. . It wouldn’t take too much of a delay in his legal proceedings to grant his request. Then all it takes is to actually win the White House again.

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