Reuters refers to court documents. The judge in the case is Aileen Cannon, who at the time was appointed by Trump. The launch was initially set for May 20, but Cannon says that is now not possible due to the number of petitions to the court.
She has not set a new date for the case, but court hearings on the motions are scheduled up to and including July 22. Trump’s lawyers initially asked that the case not go to trial until after the election, but later suggested it could start on August 12 when Cannon ordered them to submit a proposed timeline for the case.
The case is being led by Special Investigator Jack Smith, who suggested it start in July.
Huge fitting at Mar-a-Lago
It was in August 2022 that FBI agents entered Trump’s residence Mar-a-Lago where they found around 13,000 documents stored in boxes that were stacked in the residence’s shower room, bathroom, bedroom, in an office and in a storage room.
Among them were top secret documents dealing with military matters and the US nuclear weapons programme.
31 of the indictments concern violations of the US Espionage Act, but Trump denies criminal guilt and has claimed that he, as president, had the authority to declassify the documents and therefore could have them.
Can escape the cases
The decision significantly reduces the chance that any of the federal trials against Trump will begin before the Nov. 5 election. The second deals with the attempt to overturn the election defeat in 2020. Both are led by special investigator Smith.
If Trump wins the election, he will be able to instruct the Justice Department to drop the cases or pardon himself. Trump’s lawyers have worked to delay all four criminal cases against Trump.
– We are in a completely unique situation where a defendant will potentially gain the power to end the cases against himself. There is an argument for bringing the case to court before the election, Randall Eliason, who is a law professor at George Washington University and an expert on white-collar crimes, told Reuters.
