Judge Aileen Cannon split the difference between prosecutors’ request for a trial date this December and Trump’s bid to postpone it until after the 2024 election.
Donald Trump will stand trial on May 20, 2024 — after most presidential primaries have elapsed — on charges that he hoarded military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate, a federal judge ordered Friday.
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon appeared to split the difference between prosecutors’ request for a December 2023 trial date and Trump’s request to postpone the trial until after the November 2024 election.
……..
The new ruling from Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, largely sidesteps the issue of how the preparations for the trial in the federal case she is overseeing will interface with the demands of a presidential election campaign.
Cannon noted that Trump’s lawyers argued that the case would face “insurmountable prejudice in jury selection stemming from publicity about the 2024 Presidential Election,” but she found it “unnecessary” to address that issue “at this juncture.”
The judge’s order Friday also formally sets the trial to take place in Fort Pierce, Fla., which typically draws jurors from five counties along or near the state’s Treasure Coast. Those counties were more pro-Trump in the 2020 presidential election than was Palm Beach County, where federal prosecutors filed the criminal case. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and social club is located in Palm Beach County and the crimes — which include storing highly classified documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them — were allegedly committed there.
While Cannon earned a reputation as being deferential to Trump due to her rulings in a civil case challenging the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago last year, her early rulings in the criminal case appear designed to chart a middle course between Trump and the government. She has so far avoided tipping her hand on most of the explosive legal issues likely to arise during the pretrial proceedings.
Prosecutors from Smith’s office had argued that the case should not be considered “complex” under federal law or put on a protracted timeline, but Cannon rejected that view, writing that she is “unaware of any searchable case in which a court has refused a complex designation under comparable circumstances.”
……..
- Discussion
-
Trump will stand trial on May 20, 2024 — after most presidential primaries have elapsed — on charges that he hoarded military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate, a federal judge ordered today. https://t.co/6bFyJHYO83
— POLITICO (@politico) July 21, 2023
Former President Trump’s campaign celebrated the judge in his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case setting a trial date for next May. https://t.co/nUVIHmpCHi
— The Hill (@thehill) July 21, 2023
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.