Attorneys for former President Donald Trump are seeking to postpone his classified documents trial until after the 2024 election, citing failures to share evidence by federal prosecutors.
Attorneys Todd Blanche and Christopher Kise asked US District Judge Aileen Cannon to adjourn the case “until at least mid-November 2024,” court filings show, claiming special counsel Jack Smith had yet to share all evidence in the case.
The pair faulted Smith’s office for not having produced “all discovery” from “day one” as promised, including witness statements, and for piling on additional evidence following a superseding indictment in late July.
Blanche and Kise also said that more than 25% of the classified material had still not been handed over in discovery.
The attorneys for the former president further noted a “lack of necessary secure facilities” for them to review copies of the classified material and a failure to “make very basic arrangements in this District for the handling of the relevant classified information.”
They also claimed that a separate indictment from Smith’s office in Washington, DC, over the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results would conflict with the classified documents case in Florida.
“The March 4, 2023 trial date in the District of Columbia, and the underlying schedule in that case, currently require President Trump and his lawyers to be in two places at once,” Blanche and Kise wrote.
Cannon had previously set a May 20, 2024, trial date for the case, just a few weeks after Super Tuesday in the Republican primary, which Trump currently leads by more than 40 percentage points.
“There is no good reason to continue on the current path,” they added. “Therefore, President Trump respectfully submits that the adjournment requests should be granted.”
President Biden is facing a separate probe from special counsel Robert Hur over his allegedly improper retention of classified documents from his time as a senator and vice president.
Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to 37 counts for allegedly concealing national security material at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving office — and then lying to federal authorities who sought the documents.
Walt Nauta, the former president’s valet, has also pleaded not guilty to six counts as a co-conspirator after he allegedly helped Trump shift some of the boxes containing the classified documents between a bedroom, bathroom, ballroom and a basement storage room to hide them from federal authorities and the ex-president’s own lawyers.
Another employee at the Palm Beach resort, Carlos De Oliveira, pleaded not guilty to the superseding indictment, which slapped the former president with three more counts accusing him of ordering De Oliveira to wipe security camera footage.
Smith also indicted Trump in August on four counts of making knowingly false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020, which culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The former president faces a total of 91 counts after being hit with two other indictments earlier this year in Manhattan and Georgia.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg slapped Trump with 34 counts of business fraud in March for allegedly concealing “hush money” payments made before the 2016 election to a porn star in an effort to hide a purported decade-old affair.
A trial has been set in that case for March 25, 2024.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis also charged the former president with 13 counts over his attempts to reverse 2020 election results in the Peach State.
The indictment included charges under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, along with conspiracy, making false statements and asking a public official to violate their oath of office.
Willis previously sought to try all 19 co-defendants by the end of this month, but two have invoked their right to a speedy trial and will appear in court on Oct. 23.
The rest severed their cases and a trial date has yet to be agreed upon.