Judge: DOJ Request For Mid-December Trump Florida Trial “A Bit Rushed”
No trial date set yet, but at a conference today the court also expressed skepticism that Trump could not get a fair trial prior to the 2024 election.
As previously posted, Donald Trump wanted his Florida trial regarding alleged mishandling of national security information delayed until after the 2024 election, and the DOJ pressed for a December 11, 2023, trial date.
Trump argued that there was too much to do before trial making December 11 not feasible, and further argued that he could not get a fair trial during a presidential campaign.
The court held a combined Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) and trial scheduling conference today. We don’t have a transcript and it was not broadcast, so we only have media accounts to go on. CNN indicates the judge was skeptical of a December trial:
US District Judge Aileen Cannon signaled she is likely to push back the start of a trial in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case beyond the mid-December date proposed by federal prosecutors – but appeared deeply skeptical of arguments from Donald Trump’s lawyers that he couldn’t get a fair trial while running for president.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team and lawyers for Trump appeared Tuesday for the first time in front of Cannon, who will preside over the criminal case Smith has brought against the former president.
During the hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, Cannon said a proposal from federal prosecutors that the trial of Trump and his aide be held in mid-December was “a bit rushed.” She told the prosecutors that their timeline was “compressed” and said that cases like this take more time.
Cannon did not decide on a trial date but said she plans to “promptly” issue an order on the matter.
The New York Times further reports:
For nearly two hours in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, peppered prosecutors and the former president’s lawyers with questions that suggested she was in command of her courtroom and well-versed in the facts of the case….
At one point, Judge Cannon directly asked one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Christopher Kise, if he wanted to put off the trial until after the election. When Mr. Kise said he did, Judge Cannon told him that she wanted to focus on near-term issues like the amount of discovery evidence the defense had to review and the types of motions the lawyers planned to file.
As the hearing came to end, Todd Blanche, another one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, asked Judge Cannon if the defense could return to court in November and reassess the trial schedule then. Appearing to pick up on the judge’s desire to create what she called “a road map” for the case, Mr. Blanche said that if a trial date absolutely had to be chosen, he would ask for one in mid-November 2024, after the election.
I had thought the judge would set December 11 as a tentative date, while making clear that it could be pushed back depending on the progress of the case. I still think she may do that.
But one thing is clear, contrary to widespread rumors spread by the usual suspects, there is no indication that the prosecution was delaying trial because its case was imploding. The evidence will be what it will be, regardless of when the trial takes place.
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If I were the judge I would not schedule the trial until after pretrials hearings on deposition hearing, motions etc. get an idea of how much in involved before setting a trial date.
I would be considering starting an investigation for prosecutorial misconduct.
and if you found misconduct, who would do anything about it? This judge has been cowed by the 11th and Smith. If she wasn’t she would dismiss this bogus case right now and skip the theatrics
About twenty years ago there was this case case SCO vs IBM, which begat another case Novel vs SCO. This lawsuit claimed that IBM illegally inserted some of SCO’s code into linux. It was a critical case, I daresay android might not be around now if SCO won these cases.
At the time a lot of … well geeks .. were deeply interested in the result, and populated a website called groklaw specifically created to deal with this case. People would hang on every filing and ruling. They even went to court and made transcripts ( many very good ).
The funny tings is that people would go crazy over every ruling, no matter how trivial.
The moral of the story is keep your powder dry. Put every event in it’s proper perspective.
I also remember people being mad because the judge would rule that the government could argue the gun was illegal. During the hearing on closing arguments, the defense suggested they measure the barrel length, and the prosecution dropped the charge. It turned out the prosecution was arguing the barrel length was too small something we did not know at the time.
Here is what we know at this point.
1. Even simple cases can take longer than a year to go to court, especially white collar crime.
2. There a lot of motions that have to be handled ( SCO vs Linux took around ten years ). Check out Robert Gouveia’s YT channel for a hint on the number of motions ).
3. Trial dates get pushed back all the time due to the process being played out.
4. Trump, Smith and Judge Cannon all know this.
The argument that the presidential election makes a fair trial extremely difficult is at least a plausible one. Every single day of the trial the left will be screaming from the rooftops that we mustn’t re-elect a criminal.
Which begs the question, when will Hunter declare his candidacy?
Biden/Biden 2024
Get it the F over with …
a couple of big if’s here, if it actually goes to a trial and if it it is held in Ft. Pierce, FL do not expect a DC or NYC type jury.
I lived in the county where Ft. Pierce sits for about 5 years, it is diverse county when it comes to political leanings. Trump won the county by 1. 5% in 2020.
“Michigan AG Charging 16 Trump Supporters with Eight Felonies Each: ‘This Is a Monstrous Injustice'”
https://www.westernjournal.com/michigan-ag-charging-16-trump-supporters-eight-felonies-monstrous-injustice/
A police state within a police state. They are not just coming for him, they are coming for much more.
The DOJ wants a December trial date? (snerk) December 2025, maybe. They won’t even have security clearances for Trump’s lawyers by December of this year. When charges of this type for a former President are unprecedented, one must consider *why* they have never been charged before.
because all of the charges are bogus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxCDVOmGPlo&t=895s
This trial, whenever it is ultimately conducted, will be in front of a Trump appointed Judge with jury drawn from the registered voters of a Red County in a Red State. That’s as favorable a situation as he could ask for. At the very minimum it is the polar opposite of a DC/NYC Jury pool with an Obama or Biden appointed Judge.