Trump’s lawyers are asking the judge in the documents case to consider the timing of the campaign

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FORT PIERCE, Florida, July 18 (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s lawyers asked a U.S. federal judge on Tuesday not to treat the former president the same as other criminal defendants in setting a time for his trial in charges of mishandling classified documents, citing his presidential campaign.

Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, has pleaded not guilty to charges of illegally retaining national defense documents after he leaves office in 2021 and conspired to thwart the government’s efforts to acquire them.

Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise asked US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, to consider the timing of the US presidential campaign in deciding when to schedule the trial.

Cannon did not set a trial date during the hearing, which Trump did not attend, but appeared to be skeptical of prosecutors’ request for a December start. He asked prosecutor Jay Bratt if there had ever been a case involving classified information that had gone to trial in less than six months. Bratt said he could not identify a specific case.

But Cannon also didn’t seem inclined to grant Trumps request for an indefinite delay, saying, “we have to set a schedule.”

The documents case is one of several prosecutions Trump faces related to his time in the White House. Trump said Tuesday that US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought the documents case, also sent Trump a letter telling him he was the target of a grand jury investigation into his efforts to reverse his defeat. in the 2020 election.

During Tuesday’s hearing on the documents case, Trump attorney Kise said that because the US Justice Department under Biden filed the charges, the case could be seen as the “two leading contenders for the president of the United States that’s squaring off in court.”

Prosecutor David Harbach called the suggestions of political interference “flat out false.” He noted that US Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special counsel to keep the investigation away from politics.

He said the career prosecutors assigned to the case wouldn’t work if “we thought we were doing political bidding.”

The charges against Trump include violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the unauthorized possession of defense information. Trump, 77, faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Cannon initially set the trial to begin on August 14 – a date that both the defense and prosecution opposed as they said they needed more time to prepare.

After an FBI search last year of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, which turned up classified documents central to the criminal case, Cannon ruled in Trump’s favor in a challenge he brought to Justice Department investigation brought several months before the criminal. filed charges. Cannon’s decision was later overturned on appeal.

Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Will Dunham, David Bario, Noeleen Walder and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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