American federal judge overseeing the classified documents case against former president Donald Trump held a key hearing today (Mar 1) in Florida. Judge Aileen Cannon discussed several issues still unresolved, including setting the trial date and deciding whether to allow the former president to make public the identity of government investigators.
The hearing started at 10 am EST (8:30 pm IST) and continued in presence of Donald Trump.
Trial date
In filings submitted Thursday night (Feb 29), special counsel Jack Smith’s office suggested to push back the trial date to July 8, whereas Trump’s side demanded the date be pushed back to August 12. Trump’s attorneys also floated the proposal to push the trial back until the November elections take place.
“A fair trial cannot be held until after the 2024 Presidential election is concluded,” Trump said in the court filing.
“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” and “a First Amendment right that he shares with the American people to engage in campaign speech,” they wrote.
Earlier during a November hearing, Judge Cannon suggested delaying the trial, referring to complaints from Trump’s side about the amount of discovery and documents that his legal team will have to review.
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The judge added she herself would require more time to consider the “unusually high volume of unclassified and classified discovery” in the case, which included 1.3 million pages of unclassified discovery and 60 terabytes of closed-circuit television footage spanning at least nine months.
Charges against Trump in the case
The classified document case involves 40 criminal charges against Trump, with the ex-president pleading not guilty to all charges.
Major charges include willful retention of national defence information, false statements and representations, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and corruptly concealing documents.
Cannon’s decision would play a key role in laying a timeline of Trump’s legal battles and court proceedings this year. The GOP leader is facing trials in three other cases as well, the hush money charges in New York and separate election interference charges in Washington, D.C., and Fulton County, Georgia.
(With inputs from agencies)
