The trial against Mar-a-Lago is up in the air indefinitely, signals from the judge

Judge Aileen Cannon, pictured left (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida), (right) Special Counsel Jack Smith (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)

It already appeared that the May 20 trial date of last year in the Mar-a-Lago case had been penciled in and was all but guaranteed to be erased, but an order until late Monday remained a deadline that the special counsel called “crucial.” mentioned for ‘bringing the case against Donald Trump to court was another blow to the prosecution.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a brief order granting Trump a temporary extension, without further detailing how long the delay will last or deadlines for the defense to reveal whether it plans to use classified material that has been obtained through discovery ‘in any way in connection with any legal proceedings or preliminary investigations’ and to disclose expert witnesses. The notice period is important because the defense would be “prohibited” from using classified information at trial if it does not provide “a sufficiently detailed” account of its plans.

The DOJ’s Justice Manual cites CIPA § 5(a) Note the “linchpin” of the Classified Information Procedures Act, a law designed to protect classified information during a criminal proceeding, such as the Espionage Act case against Trump .

While the defense had argued in April that the May 9 deadline should be postponed because it was a “nearly impossible task” for Trump’s lawyers to fight the hush money lawsuit in Manhattan and file the notice at the same time, special counsel Jack said Smith told the judge that the defense “must stop” from “reflexively” pushing for an “open” delay, especially considering that Trump lawyers had months to meet deadlines that are “critical” to “bringing the case to trial.” to bring justice.”

More recently, the defense has pushed back, saying Smith and his prosecutors have “relentlessly sought deadlines” at breakneck speed.

More law and crime coverage: Jack Smith urges Mar-a-Lago judge not to let government give in to Trump’s discovery demands, ‘corrects’ defense theories one by one

Earlier on Monday, however, the Trump team said deadlines had to be postponed because the Special Counsel’s Office “failed to maintain the integrity of the contents of certain boxes obtained at Mar-a-Lago.” The defense pointed to the Special Counsel’s Office’s own admissions to Cannon.

“(T)here are some boxes where the order of items in that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” the special counsel said, before explaining in a footnote: “The government recognizes that this is inconsistent with what the government advisor previously understood and submitted to the court” on whether the boxes in question “were in their original, intact form when seized.” The special counsel had told Cannon that the boxes “with one exception; and that is that the classified documents have been removed and placeholders have been placed in the documents.”

For the defense, this admission was fatal to Smith’s attempt to meet deadlines. Trump’s lawyer asked: How can we be forced to “specify” secret discoveries that can be used at trial when prosecutors cannot be “trusted to preserve existing evidence”?

“While reviewing discovery and preparing pretrial motions, President Trump’s counsel relied on the scans and believed that the location of allegedly classified documents in the boxes was exculpatory,” the defense said. “Indeed, it was our understanding that most, and possibly all, of the charged documents were buried in the boxes and co-located with other items, which provided favorable context as to, among other things, when the document was placed in a box placed. Until last Friday, it never occurred to us that the prosecution team could not be trusted to perform the basic task of maintaining the integrity of such evidence, despite the extensive resources at their disposal.”

The judge then issued a temporary stay without immediately going into details:

PAPERLESS ORDER Temporary Suspension of CIPA § 5 and Rule 16 Expert Disclosure Deadlines 439. Order establishing a second set of preliminary deadlines/hearings to follow. Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 5/6/2024. (jf01) (Entered: 05/06/2024)

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