Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Trump Argues Florida Trial Should Be Held After Election As Judge Considers Schedule

Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Former President Donald Trump urged Judge Aileen Cannon to push his classified documents trial off until after the 2024 election in a court filing ahead of Friday’s hearing on the schedule.

Trump has already arrived at the courthouse for a hearing where Cannon, a Trump appointee, will consider his request to delay the trial currently scheduled for May 20. In court filings Thursday, special counsel Jack Smith proposed a July 8 start date, while Trump again requested the court hold off on the trial until after the 2024 election, though he included an alternate proposed start date of Aug. 12.

“As the leading candidate in the 2024 election, President Trump strongly asserts that a fair trial cannot be conducted this year in a manner consistent with the Constitution, which affords President Trump a Sixth Amendment right to be present and to participate in these proceedings as well as, inter alia, a First Amendment right that he shares with the American people to engage in campaign speech,” Trump’s attorneys argued in a Thursday filing.

Huge turnout for President Trump.

Big crowds outside Florida courthouse this morning as Trump arrives.pic.twitter.com/kHtFtYtrxw

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) March 1, 2024

The filing includes a timetable that stacks up primary dates and other legal deadlines alongside Trump’s proposed schedule.

Trump’s proposed August start date would place the trial after the Republican National Convention set for July 15-18, as well as after his March trial in the New York hush money case and April oral arguments at the Supreme Court for his bid to dismiss his election interference case based on presidential immunity.

Holding a trial before the election would violate established Department of Justice(DOJ) norms and rules against taking actions that have an impact on the election, the filing claims.

“Given President Trump’s status as the presumptive Republican nominee and President Biden’s Chief political rival, a trial this year would also violate Justice Manual § 9-85.500, which applies to the Special Counsel’s Office, and prohibits “Actions that May Have an Impact on an Election,’ as well as established DOJ norms that former officials described—when talking about Hillary Clinton rather than President Trump—as consisting of “a general principle of avoiding interference in elections,'” his attorneys argued.

In Georgia, a judge will also hear closing arguments Friday on the effort to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the racketeering case against Trump for alleged financial benefits she gained from appointing her romantic partner, Nathan Wade, as special prosecutor.