Jack Smith, the special counsel, has asked a federal judge to delay the start of the trial of former President Donald J. Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, in the classified documents case from Aug. 11 to Dec. 11, according to a court filing. Justice Department made public Friday night.
The Justice Department’s proposal still calls for a relatively quick timeline; Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s earlier ruling set the initial trial date at August 14, but it was seen as something of an administrative placeholder, as both sides anticipated significant procedural delays.
In their filing, prosecutors said additional time would be needed to obtain security clearances for defense attorneys and deal with proceedings involving classified evidence. It would also give defense attorneys more time to review the volumes of materials prosecutors have handed over to them, according to the document.
Mr. Smith and his team argued in the filing that the trial still needs to be expedited despite its huge political implications, because it “involves straightforward theories of liability and does not raise novel issues of fact or law,” nor is it particularly “unusual or complex” from a legal perspective.
Mr. Smith’s team also provided defense attorneys with their first estimate of the number of witnesses (84) who might be called to testify. The judge presiding over Mr. Trump’s initial hearing asked the list to place a restriction on the former president from discussing the case with them, to prevent witness tampering.
Prosecutors requested that the names be kept sealed, cautioning that the tally “does not include all the witnesses the government might call at trial,” and said the defense had reserved the right to question those on the list. .
The special counsel also launched a set of procedures mandated under the Classified Information Procedures Act that will give Trump’s attorneys and Nauta, Trump’s valet and personal assistant, access to classified evidence that the government plans to present at trial. . The classified documents are a key component of the case against Trump, in which he faces charges of endangering national defense secrets and obstruction for his withholding of the material after he left the White House and his refusal to return it.
The defense may not share the urgency of the prosecution, and prosecutors said in their filing that defense attorneys planned to challenge the special counsel’s schedule. Trump’s strategy on legal matters has long been to delay. If a trial drags on past the 2024 election and Trump wins the race, he could theoretically try to pardon himself or he could order his attorney general to drop the charges and expunge the case.
The extent to which the two sides clash on scheduling and procedure poses an early test for Judge Cannon, a relatively inexperienced jurist appointed by Trump in 2020. She interrupted the document investigation last year with several rulings in favor of the former president before a The conservative appeals court overturned it, saying it never had the legal authority to intervene.
The filing comes just before Mr. Nauta’s formal arraignment in Miami federal court, scheduled for Tuesday. He could not be formally arraigned with Trump on June 13 because his Washington-based attorney had not yet been recognized by the court.
Earlier this week, the government began turning over unclassified discovery materials to the defense, including documents obtained through court orders and subpoenas, transcripts of grand jury testimony and witness interviews, and copies of closed-circuit footage of television that the government obtained during its investigation, according to the filler.
