The trial of former President Donald Trump, who is accused of hoarding confidential papers after leaving the White House, was postponed indefinitely by a federal judge on Tuesday.
May 20 was the trial’s tentative start date, which Cannon removed without announcing a new one. She promised to determine a new date that respects both the public’s right to a just and efficient administration of justice as well as Trump’s right to a fair trial.
The office of Special Counsel Jack Smith of the Justice Department declined to comment on the ruling.
Trump is accused of planning to conceal hundreds of documents from federal officials by hiding them at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving the White House. Because the documents include some of the most significant secrets of the nation, prosecutors claim he broke the Espionage Act.
As president, Trump asserts, he was free to handle the records as he pleased. He entered a not guilty plea.
A retired judge known as a special master was ordered by Cannon to examine the confidential papers that the FBI had seized from Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 in order to determine whether they contained any personal information. That kept investigators from looking at them too closely for a while. Part of Cannon’s order was reversed by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which also put an end to the special master review.
However, experts stated that trial judges usually have the last say when it comes to scheduling. National security attorney Bradley Moss stated that there isn’t much that Cannon’s detractors could do regarding her choice because she has been cautious to stay away from making choices that call for appeals to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and that scheduling choices “easily fall within her discretionary authority.”
A potential benefit of the judgment, according to Moss, could be that two of Trump’s other trials could now be set for before the election due to the documents case’s postponement.
Trump is being tried for four counts of felonies, one of which is being heard in state court in New York on allegations that he fabricated financial documents to conceal payments of hush money to a porn star prior to the 2016 election.
There was “plenty of blame to go around,” primarily against Cannon, according to Norm Eisen, a senior scholar at the Brookings Institution and a House counsel during Trump’s first impeachment. However, he questioned why Smith brought the case to Florida.