(Washington) – Donald Trump’s lawyers are asking for the trial in which the former US president is accused of keeping secret documents after leaving the White House to be postponed until after the 2024 presidential election.
The trial in Florida, one of four criminal cases in which Trump is currently charged, is scheduled to begin on May 20, 2024.
However, in a motion filed Wednesday evening, Trump’s lawyers urged Judge Eileen Cannon to delay the start of the trial until at least mid-November 2024.
They argued that the trial could not begin in May because of a scheduling conflict — Mr. Trump is scheduled to stand trial again in Washington in March — and because there was a delay in the process of obtaining and reviewing classified documents mentioned in the indictment filed by special prosecutor Jack Smith.
Trump’s lawyers, Christopher Case and Todd Blanche, denounced in their request that “the Office of the Special Counsel failed to provide some basic documents in the case.”
“Given the current timeline, we cannot underestimate the damage done to President Trump because his team has not yet received important documents that should have been provided months ago.”
The trial, which begins in mid-November 2024, means it will take place after the presidential election scheduled for November 5. Mr. Trump is currently the front-runner in the race for the Republican Party nomination.
For their part, prosecutors in the case warned last week that Trump’s team would seek to unreasonably delay the start of the trial.
Although they acknowledged that there was a “slightly longer delay than expected” for some stages of uncovering evidence, prosecutors said it was wrong to accuse them of seeking to slow down the process.
The Justice Department says it has so far provided about 1.28 million pages of non-classified documents and has turned over the majority of the classified evidence it plans to present in court. Most of the remaining classified evidence is expected to be handed over to the defense by Friday.
In this case, Mr. Trump is accused of illegally keeping tons of secret documents that he took with him after leaving the White House in 2021.
Most of these documents were stored at his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
The former president was also accused of repeatedly obstructing the federal government’s efforts to recover the documents in question. He has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
