Trump Classified Records Trial in Florida Postponed Indefinitely
The trial should have started on May 20.
***This is breaking news. I will update it as information comes out.
United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon postponed former President Donald Trump’s classified records trial indefinitely for discovery and pre-trial motions.
It would have started on May 20.
Following the Court’s prior Order setting the first batch of substantive pre-trial deadlines, the Court hereby establishes the second set of pre-trial deadlines to manage pending discovery and disclosure matters, adjudicate pre-trial motions before the Court, and advance through additional stages of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) as implicated in this complex-designated case.
The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture—before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming—would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury. The Court therefore vacates the current May 20, 2024, trial date (and associated calendar call), to be reset by separate order following resolution of the matters before the Court, consistent with Defendants’ right to due process and the public’s interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice.
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Comments
Am I allowed to translate this as “prosecution’s case is crashing and burning, and there is no hope of fixing this, so let’s let it go away quietly?”
Thanks, that translation hit the spot. I’m not up on legal mumbo jumbo.
I hope,fingers crossed
I think there’s also some subtext of “The government keeps trying to hurry this along, but the more the defense digs into the mountain of evidence, the more issues they find with the evidence and how the government handled it. So let’s take this slow so we can see what other fun things the government doesn’t want the defense to have time to find.”
Yes, this.
Indeed
That and that the defendant has the right to prepare for a trial and not get bum rushed into it.
My read is more that the judge is postponing because she knows if she simply dismisses it that it will be refiled and it’ll probably end up with a communist activist that would be more than happy to legislate from the bench.
There aren’t yet sufficient grounds to dismiss it, so she isn’t. But that may well come, so she’s giving it time. If the defense discovers enough to justify dismissal they can come back and ask for it.
I agree. She suspects the worst. I have been there when such has happened.
You don’t find evidence tampering to be reason enough?
Not unless it was deliberate, for which there is no evidence (yet).
Lying to a court for two years is pretty solid evidence that their actions were deliberate.
Of course it was deliberate. Why would you give that evil son of a bitch any benefit of the doubt?
Considering that the government is coming after him with unlimited resources, there should be zero tolerance for prosecutorial misconduct.
The court can’t dismiss the case without establishing that the false statement was deliberate.
John B, there whole case hasn’t been going two years, so how can anyone have lied to the court for that long? So far there’s no evidence that they prosecution has lied at all. If the defense can find such evidence, then the judge can act on it. But she absolutely cannot act on pure speculation and partisanship.
there are sufficient grounds for dismissal ,starting with Trump was indicted by an out of venue grand jury.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxCDVOmGPlo&t=571s
No, there aren’t.
The blowhard on your video asserts that the vicinage clause applies to the grand jury. This is just not true, and he offers no argument for why it should be true.
Not only is the blowhard wrong on the law, he’s also wrong on the facts. The entire premise of your claim is just not true. Trump was not indicted by an out of venue grand jury, so the whole question of whether he could be is moot.
Hey Milhouse, Trump was indicted by a DC grand jury for a FL case
No, he was not.
There is also the niggly little detail that the sitting President has full and final authority to determine what is and is not “classified” material. His simple removal of the documents to his privae residence as his term or service ended is proof hat he had decided those documents he brought with him are NOT “classified”.
I suspect she might eventually let a jury decide it as an acquittal instead of dismissing it herself by allowing the defense to present the evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and vindictive prosecution to a jury, along with appropriate instructions, and let them decide. A jury acquittal cannot be appealed by the prosecution, but a dismissal can, and there may not be sufficient proof of either for a dismissal. A jury only needs reasonable doubt to acquit. But for right now, she wants full discovery to continue, to see what else turns up.
One would hope, but that is not my translation. Mine is that running concurrently with the trial in NY doesn’t usefully extend the anti-Trump media cycle. Postponing now and, I’d bet, restarting after that trial concludes keeps the anti-Trump drumbeat going as long as possible. That assumes said trial concludes in reasonable time. Merchan has already hinted at wanting to extend into and past election day, presumably to influence the election.
They have been influencing the election, in Trump’s favor.
If that were the case it would have been the prosecution that wanted the delay. Instead it’s the defense that wants it, and the judge has granted it, not because the case is already doomed but because we don’t yet know what’s going to come out in the briefing and discovery, so there’s no way to know when both sides can be ready for a trial, if ever.
The original date was set on the assumption that discovery would proceed as normal, but now we’re learning that there have been problems, so that date is no longer feasible, and there’s not enough information to set a new date yet.
While it is certainly true that the prosecution has no case, it’s not the prosecution that is hoping this goes away, quietly or otherwise. The difference between this case and the NY cases, for instance, is that here, there is a judge who is not also on the prosecution team. She actually seems to care about following the law and doing things properly.
Err no, this is an incompetent judge who is twiddling her thumbs making innumerable legal mistakes postponing which is what every legal commentator has predicted given her grebious behaviour. Her decisions have very little to do with the merits of the case
Awwww.
Please show us on the little dolly here where Trump touched you.
What a mangyna!
Suuuure, Barfy. The lead prosecutor has admitted lying to the court for two years, breaking the chain of custody of evidence, and setting up a false crime scene narrative. All of which are criminal procedure no-nos, but a lickspittle like you “knows better”. Uh huh. Six bucks and your big mouth will get you thrown out of Starbucks with a hot cup of coffee poured over pointed head.
“The lead prosecutor has admitted lying to the court for two years, breaking the chain of custody of evidence, and setting up a false crime scene narrative.”
No the filter team put the documents back in the boxes in a slightly different order, that’s it.
No, he has not admitted lying to the court at all, let alone for two years. He has admitted inadvertently misinforming the court, having himself been misinformed. That’s his story, and to penalize him the judge would have to have proof that he’s lying. So far there is no such proof. If the defense can find it then the judge can act on it.
Also, the case has only been going for less than a year, so nobody can possibly have lied to the judge for longer than that. And the documents got out of order much more recently than that, so even if there was a lie it was told only a few months ago if that.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
You’re not just a nuclear engineering specialist, you’re a climate scientist and a first tier trial lawyer too!
What you REALLY are is a pimply faced loser.
Take a hike.
Amazing Steve when did I ever claim to be those things. You really are retarded aren’t you,
Just to clarify you are saying the Prosecution(the government) mishandling classified information/evidence in a case about the defendant mishandling classified evidence has little to do with the merits of the case?
I hope so… I think. I suppose that if it’s become apparent that they can’t bulldoze through a conviction, the next best position is to leave Trump hanging out as an “accused felon”.
I suspect that this case will either be dropped by Smith or the Judge will dismiss the charges with prejudice. (Meaning they can’t be refiled)
I suspect the latter rather then the former. Smith is in big trouble. If Trump wins in November, watch Smith head off to Europe and look for political asylum.
Smith is never going to drop this case. That’s just not who he is. He will take the worst, most unethical case to trial, just ask Bob McDonnell. With respect to being dismissed with prejudice, while anything is possible, it’s INCREDIBLY rare for federal criminal cases to be dismissed with prejudice before trial. In fact, they’re rarely dismissed before the state has presented its case-in-chief.
Cannon will not dismiss, she has had ample opportunity to already
On what grounds?
This is unlikely, dismissing the case without a good legal reason will open the door to appeal which she has tried to avoid like the plague hence why she avoids making any decision at all and where she has made decisions she’s had to backtrack to avoid appeal
Grasping at those straws, are you?
There’s not a snowball chance in Hades that this case will see the light of day long after re-election of DJT.
You can now crawl back under your rock until 2028.
“re-election of DJT.”
This is literally his only hope, and you admitting his guilt. Why prove your innocence for multiple crimes when you can get your zombie cult followers to vote for you despite the mountains of evidence of guilt and just abuse your power instead . How principled of you 🤦♂️
So NY will be abusing him that much more
NY’s economy is imploding. How long can they last?
“Imploding” is a relative term. There is no foreseeable future in which NY will be unable to afford to try criminal cases in the next few decades.
“There is no foreseeable future in which NY will be unable to afford to try criminal cases in the next few decades.”
Are you talking about things like Bragg’s case? Letitia James’ case?
Or are you talking about nipping out of towners for driving violations, which are so over-penalized the local jurisdictions split the take with the State? (And really don’t be from out of state.)
Gonna take them a while to beat down the internal economy so much that the traffic fine revenue dries up. The first kind of case is at more risk — show trails are expensive.
The ticket scam generates revenue, so NY will always be able to afford it.
But I’m talking about the Trump trials. No matter how bad the economy gets, NY is still going to be able to afford to put on such shows. Waiting for it to go so bankrupt that it can’t do so is a fool’s game.
I think the admission that they’ve been tampering is Central here. She knows she can’t simply dismiss because they would refile and they would probably get a communist activist the next time around. This effectively puts the case on the Shelf.
It remains absolutely unconscionable that Joe Biden had top secret documents in his garage, and as senator/VP he had no right whatsoever to have them. Then, Hur finds that this rose to the level of a crime, but simply let him off the hook because he was ‘an old man with a poor memory’ whom a jury would probably not convict. And yet, Biden remains president. How can anyone justify this double standard?
The same way HRC wasn’t held to account for her obvious crimes: prosecutorial discretion. More specifically, the Regime gets to decide when mens rea exists and when it doesn’t, despite all evidence to the contrary.
And here’s one more. In this case, the government made false filings. Whether this was purposeful or not, the fact is the government lied to the court.
Will there be any punishment?
No, there won’t be any punishment. It’s (D)ifferent.
If the Carter Page is any indication – and it probably is – there won’t be any consequences for their deceit at all. In the Page case, an FBI lawyer knowingly made a false representation to the court (in fact, he fabricated evidence), received barely a slap in the wrist and was practicing law again within the year.
If it was inadvertent, and so far there’s no evidence that it wasn’t, then punishment would be inappropriate. It’s already led to a delay, and depending how things turn out it might lead to a dismissal, but that’s the worst that can happen to the prosecution. If evidence emerges that it was on purpose, then we get into the realm of sanctions against individuals. Judges don’t take it lightly when they’re deliberately misinformed.
Please explain how one “inadvertently” alters an email?
What email? The misinformation was that the state had carefully preserved the order of documents within the box, when in fact it hadn’t. There’s no evidence (yet) that Smith knew this when he told the judge it had been.
If he didn’t KNOW the answer, he shouldn’t have made assurances. And if someone on his team lied to him, that buck stops with him, too.
Henry Bowman, he was entitled to assume that his staff were not incompetent, and of course would have preserved the evidence in its original order. He can’t be personally penalized for making that assumption. The worst that can happen is that the case is dismissed, or the defense is given the equivalent of a free kick. Now if it can be proven that he did know, and deliberately lied, then he can be punished.
Even when mens rea is not even an element of the crime.
First of all, Hur didn’t find him to be actually incompetent, but said that it would be impossible to convict him because he would play incompetent to the jury. It’s unethical to put someone on trial if you know you can’t convict him.
Second, even if he had actually found Biden to be utterly incompetent, what could he do about it? He has no authority to remove a president. There is literally nothing he could do as a prosecutor to remove him. All he could do would have been to release his report, say what he had found, and let the politiicians decide what to do with that information.
Because removing a president is entirely a political process, not a judicial one. No court gets a say in the matter. So it would be up to the Democrats to decide whether removing him would help them, and then if they decided to remove him it would be up to the Republicans to decide whether to cooperate or block it. And if it were up to me the Republicans would refuse to play along. Let them be stuck with him, unless they can persuade him to resign, which I think he would refuse.
Spare me, Milhouse. Prosecutors put defendants they can’t hope to convict into trials *all the time*. It’s not their money being spent. That’s “Process as punishment” in a straight nutshell.
The only questions prosecutors tend to ask is: “Did the accused do the thing he is being accused of” and “Is that thing a crime” (and they may waive one or the other if it’s politically expedient.
Just look at Kyle Rittenhouse. Everyone knew it was self defense, but he was made an example of anyway.
yep, just look at what’s happening to Trump
No, they don’t. It’s unethical, and you can’t point to cases where it happened.
The Rittenhouse prosecution fully expected to get a conviction. I was afraid they might get one too. Certainly Rittenhouse’s lawyers shared that fear.
And everyone here seems convinced that Trump will be convicted, so why shouldn’t the prosecutors think that too?
you’re fullashiit
I’m telling the plain truth, unlike you.
Facts don’t care about your feelings. And you’re not entitled to your own facts.
LMAO! It’S UneThICaL!! Sure, Milhouse. The state would never, ever, ever, EVER do anything unethical.
Show me a case where they tried someone knowing that they couldn’t possibly convict him.
I think that finding a case prosecuted unethically because of inability to convict, in this era of the last couple of decades is a lot harder to find than not prosecuting a case that could clearly realize a conviction.
As much as most of us appear not to like black and white facts, (not racist, please, artistic and metaphoric contrast only), prosecutors bring unpopular cases all the time with serious intentions and expectations of convictions because, unlike the belief of the Chief Justice, there are significant differences between judges and those differences are known and played in the legal system. Also the venue where the jury is selected plays a huge role in an expectation of conviction.
I don’t down vote or upvote for that matter based on a comment that shares my point of view as much as the content of the comment and the definition of the terms that comment refers too. I have worked closely with people who see no grey areas in life, and are continuously ridiculed because of their beliefs and thought processes.
Tom
Everyone here seems convinced that Trump will be convicted, because it’s potemkin theatre, a kangaroo court, and the outcome has obviously been predetermined.
Milhouse, your first and greatest mistake is in assuming everyone plays ethically. They do not, as everything and everybody in this abominable Biden administration, acting with the moral center of a Bothrops species viper, has amply demonstrated.
So then, to fully expand the series… if Hur believed he could put together a jury as biased against Joe as the NY juries are biased against Trump, it would have been entirely ethical for him to prosecute Joe.
Why do you seem to insist that a bunch of corrupt communists act ethically?
Prosecutors do that all the time only in politically charged cases. Cases with high public interest or clamor for retribution. I’ve seen this with notorious rape accusations, spectacular allegations of child abuse, infamous murders, cases where a political point is being made (like about guns), and of course political actors like Trump that are despised by many people. They don’t really do this in normal cases where political motives are absent, but they do asset forfeiture all the time when they get to keep the money.
They always let communist traitors walk
There is not a double standard there is one standard. They are in charge so the law doesn’t apply to them, you are not in charge so the law applies to you.
He let him of the hook because there was no case to answer u like Trump. The report made a very very clear distinction between the two cases. In no uncertain terms did Trump obstruct, lie and hide even from his own lawyers
It must be so hard to keep your head above water when you seem to be grasping at a limited number of straws.
Keep paddling, we’re uh, ………………. rooting for you!
Me: facts
You: acts like a snowflake
Honestly why do you reply, it’s embarrassing for you, if you can’t respond with any substance all your demonstrating is your a bit dim
Right-o, F. Lee Bailey!
Do you even know what the evidence is, are you remotely familiar with the case. Lol I’m guessing not 😂😂
This is to protect Jack Smith and the DOJ from the perjury charges and the attempt to enter corrupted evidence in a trial which would be perjury, but now runs the risk of the entire case being dismissed for want of evidence having been found out. Compound that with the government itself being the deliverer of the documents in question, apparently coordinated with the Biden Administration and we are approaching government crimes of a serious nature not seen for decades.
That depends on evidence emerging that the misinformation was deliberate. So far there is no such evidence, and the government says it was inadvertent, so the court has to take them at their word.
But the court also has suspicions. That is clear.
“no such evidence”?? Have you even been following this case? The bad faith and sheer criminality of the government has been on full display since day 1, and it has gotten worse with every passing week.
Only a complete moron, or an accomplice, would take these liars at their word. Pretty much everything they have said has been a lie. And their insane SWAT/Delta raid on Mar-A-Lago (for something that NEVER IN HISTORY has called for any sort of raid), not allowing attorneys to observe them, making fake pictures of documents … and that was just at the beginning.
A reasonable person would assume that everything Traitor Joe’s henchmen say is a lie. You can’t lose money on that bet.
So far there is not a shred of evidence that the misinformation was deliberate. If you’re aware of such evidence, produce it. You can’t, because there isn’t any. Yet. Discovery might very well produce some, in which case it will be time for the court to consider sanctions and/or dismissal. But now is not that time.
LOL.
There’s nothing but evidence.
Such as?
Unlike you, I don’t generally ascribe good intentions to bad people. Jack Smith is fucking evil, he did it on purpose
The court has to ascribe good faith to everyone involved. It can’t dismiss a case without evidence, just because it doesn’t trust the prosecution.
On the contrary, cases can be dismissed when there is insufficient evidence or proof to meet a standard for conviction. You just don’t throw a case to a jury like they’re attempting to do to Trump in New York and hope that prejudice will be the driving factor in conviction.
@George S
Your answering the wrong question, this isn’t about what evidence there is but the actions undertaken in relation too the evidence.
How could the court possibly determine that before the prosecution has even presented a case? Courts can’t dismiss charges on that ground until after the prosecution has rested.
This is all a gross mischarachterisation. The issue at hand is the reordering of documents in boxes not misinformation
Return to your village. They are missing its idiot 😂😂
Do you have any original thoughts or are you steve59IQs little sub. I guess the ball gag interferes with your brain function.
Oh looky.
Now the child is having a go at Milhouse!
The misinformation is when Smith assured the court that the documents had been properly preserved. Now he has had to inform the court that that was incorrect.
And the order of the documents is evidence. If the defense can come up with proof that the documents were shuffled on purpose, then the case would probably have to be dismissed.
“That depends on evidence emerging that the misinformation was deliberate.”
Being sloppy. lazy or willfully ignorant is a thing. Perhaps our local Barristers can weigh in with laws, rulings, and professional standards that apply to these variations (Including “Nope. No problem there.” if that’s the case.):
— Prosecutor knew with good reason that the stuff was as described, and said so.
— Prosecutor didn’t know that the stuff was as described, yet said it was.
— Prosecutor willfully chose not to know whether what he was about to assert was for sure, or not. “Too good to check.” is the colloquial form.
— Prosecutor knew stuff wasn’t as he was about to describe, and said it anyway.
All kinds of jobs require asserting that something was checked and as it should be. Asserting without meeting the check protocol carries consequences as great as an actual breech; often worse.
Prosecutor guy has a bigger problem. Either he was sloppy handling classified material — bad inventory is its own problem and not knowing you had bad inventory is worse. Or there was nothing to be concerned about in the Florida Boxes, so no case for mishandling.
Yes, Smith makes Obergruppenfuhrer Robert Müller seem ethical
So when does Smith get indicted in this same court?
the tea leaves have a curious crimson hue.
That’s a shame. I heard that Jack Smith was planning to put Stormy Daniels on the stand … just to give some background …
It’s hard enough to understand how she was relevant to the case that is actually about the money she received. I have yet to see an explanation of what she could possibly have said that would be relevant to the trial. But at least she has a connection. Here there’s not even that; Smith might as well call the fictional Russian prostitutes from the pee video that never existed.
I was just kidding … though seeing how all of these show trial cases are proceeding I guess this would not have been an unthinkable possibility. It’s a sad commentary on where we are in America.
This is what’s supposed to happen when you mix an honest judge with a corrupt Executive Branch prosecution.
Milhouse, here’s a legal question if, as you say, it’s never been done and it would be ethically wrong to prosecute knowing a conviction is at best unlikely and and worst impossible….
Would it not also be unethical on the flip side, to NOT prosecute when you know a conviction is likely or even inevitable?
On the third hand, is it not also unethical to prosecute knowing a conviction in an unbiased jurisdiction is unlikely but you filed in a biased jurisdiction?
Imho, expecting an unbiased trial for Trump in either NY or DC is pollyanic at best, at worst is deliberate ignoring of reality. It’s not too unlike holding a trial for a black man accused of raping a white female victim in (say) Macon Georgia in the 1950s. Regardless of the facts, a conviction is fairly certain.
No, it’s not unethical to decline to prosecute a case, even if you could have got a conviction. You can decide that it’s against the interest of justice. For instance, if you believe that the person is actually innocent, it’s unethical to prosecute him even if you’re sure you can convict him. Or you can just decide it’s not in the public interest.
But if you know that someone is guilty, but that you can’t convict him, then it’s unethical to put him through the ordeal of a trial.
Most of the Trump trials are pure theater, because even if the facts are completely as alleged they don’t amount to crimes. The Florida trial is the only one where at least there is an actual crime being alleged. If he did what the prosecution claims, then he’s guilty. In the other trials he could admit all of the allegations and still not be guilty. So the entire existence of those trial is unethical.
No, even in the Florida trial, there is no actual crime alleged. The Presidential Records Act covers the whole thing and the Clinton Sock Drawer decision clarifies that when a president sorts their records out from the rest, that president is the only person qualified to make that decision and they are sole arbiter.
reality check:
why use up alll this money etc
when we can start around august close to the election and tie him up in court and double the gag orders
potus trumps gains with poc is the problem that the dnc is facing
poc have to vote dem or risk losing $$$$$$$$$$ given to the leaders of the communities ( what they do with that $$$ is on par what blm did with “their” bounty)
so any move towards trump or better yet
AWAY from the dems with no promise of $$$$$$ is more direct ,more hurting towards the dnc