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Special counsel Jack Smith’s December trial start request in the classified documents case raised the question: What date will Donald Trump ask for?
We got the answer Monday night: No date at all.
Responding to Smith’s position, lawyers for Trump and co-defendant Walt Nauta cited the voluminous evidence, its classified nature and Trump’s busy schedule running for president as reasons to put off setting a date for now. The defense filing at least implicitly seeks delay through the 2024 election.
Running for president “requires a tremendous amount of time and energy, and that effort will continue until the election on November 5, 2024,” the filing stated, adding, “Mr. Nauta’s job requires him to accompany President Trump during most campaign trips around the country.” That makes preparing for trial “challenging,” the defense lawyers wrote, concluding that such preparation “requires significant planning and time, making the current schedule untenable and counseling in favor of a continuance.”
They also cited Trump’s existing trial docket as further reason for delay — namely his New York civil fraud trial set for October and his New York hush money trial set for March 2024.
Trump’s bold request, or, more to the point, his lack of a specific request, raises an early and critical scheduling test for Judge Aileen Cannon. (As I wrote Monday, it seemed like arguments over scheduling the initial conference regarding classified procedures could raise a timing test for the judge as well, but that's now a moot point because the conference, previously set for Friday, got pushed back only slightly to July 18.)
Of course, the case was never going to trial on the date Cannon initially set for August, given the anticipated delays that arise even in normal cases. And Smith’s December request itself was aspirational, if necessary from the prosecutor’s view to keep the case on track.
So how will Cannon handle the competing trial date views of December on the one hand and possibly never on the other? Remember: If Trump or another Republican is elected president in 2024, his federal prosecution will likely go away.
At a broad level, Trump is presenting the judge he appointed to the federal bench with the argument that got her into trouble during previous civil litigation, where she helped jam up the classified documents case for Trump before he was charged. This raised questions when she was assigned the criminal case about whether she could handle it fairly. That is, in the previous litigation, she treated Trump differently because he’s a former president, a position that was smacked down by the federal appeals court.
Now, Trump wants special treatment again — this time because he's running for president.
Will Cannon give it to him?