Federal Judge Denies Trump Request To Postpone Classified Docs Trial — For Now

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon denied former President Donald Trump’s request to postpone his Florida classified documents trial Friday, but promised to revisit it in a few months.

While Cannon opted to keep Trump’s May 2024 trial date, she set a March 1 scheduling conference to reconsider his request to change it, according to the court order. For now, Cannon gave Trump’s legal team more time to review evidence as she said “due process requires,” issuing a new pre-trial schedule.

“All told, by latest numbers, the Court is advised that this case involves approximately 1.3 million pages of unclassified discovery, approximately 60 terabytes of closed-circuit television footage spanning at least nine months, and 5,500 pages of classified discovery,” Cannon wrote. “The volume and timing of these materials has outpaced initial estimates and required supplementation, both in the normal course and also to correct inadvertent omissions in the Special Counsel’s productions.”

Trump’s lawyers requested that his trial be delayed until after the election in November 2024.

Cannon also referenced Trump’s other trials, indicating that she “cannot ignore the realities of pretrial and trial schedules” in two of Trump’s other cases: his 2020 election trial in the District of Columbia and New York criminal case for allegedly falsifying business records.

Trump’s trial in Washington, D.C. is scheduled for March 4, 2024, and the New York trial is scheduled for March 25, 2024.

“Although the Special Counsel is correct that the trajectory of these matters potentially remains in flux, the schedules as they currently stand overlap substantially with the deadlines in this case, presenting additional challenges to ensuring Defendant Trump has adequate time to prepare for trial and to assist in his defense,” Cannon wrote.