Special counsel Jack Smith’s team and lawyers for Donald Trump will appear Tuesday for the first time in front of the judge who will preside over the criminal case Smith has brought against the former president, for a hearing that will be procedural in nature but could provoke clashes over how quickly the classified documents case should move to trial.
Both sides have asked to push the trial date months later than this summer – with Trump wanting it potentially after the 2024 election – and US District Judge Aileen Cannon has ordered the parties to be prepared to discuss prosecutors’ proposal that the trial happen much sooner, starting in mid-December of this year.
The hearing was sought by the prosecutors under a provision of the Classified Information Procedures Act, which establishes the process for deciding how the highly secretive government documents that are at the heart of the prosecution will be handled in the case. Such a proceeding is usually mundane in nature – the substance of the classified materials that Trump allegedly refused to return to the government will not be discussed – and typically focused on a scheduling plan for fulfilling the steps that CIPA lays out.
But prosecutors, in court filings, have been at odds with attorneys for Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, about how much the trial should be delayed, and Tuesday’s hearing could set the stage for the scheduling conflict to play out head-to-head.
Trump himself is not expected to attend to the hearing, but Nauta – who is a bodyman to the former president – may attend, sources told CNN.
Delaying the case appears to be a key part of Trump’s strategy. He and Nauta have suggested in court filings that it may have to wait until after the 2024 election, and they have claimed that the prosecutors have an “unrealistic” timeline for how quickly the pre-trial…
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