Though a lot of attention remains trained on former President Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal trial in New York City on charges of falsifying business records in connection to hush money from before the 2016 elections, he’s also still charged in three other cases.
Those include the federal case accusing him of misconduct over his handling of government documents from his time in office, a cache of which was recovered from Trump’s southern Florida resort Mar-a-Lago. Now, Judge Aileen Cannon — the Trump-nominated federal judge handling the case — has reportedly granted Trump an indefinite delay of “the requirement for Trump to have to file his CIPA Section 5 notice in the MAL classified documents case,” journalist Katie Phang explained. Filing that notice must come before trial. It’s a disclosure of classified materials that the defense is angling to use once the case gets there.
“This case was set for trial on May 20, which obviously won’t happen,” responded former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance on X, the platform formerly called Twitter. “It should have been ready to try by the end of last year. Extending the 5(a) deadlines indefinitely is the same thing as giving Trump an indefinite trial delay.”
Cannon has faced intense criticism throughout her involvement in an array of Trump-related court proceedings. Points of contention have included her insistence on keeping alive, at least in the context of discussions about jury instructions, an idea that the federal law known as the Presidential Records Act could offer Trump a legal lifeline, though prosecutors insisted that key disputes in the case were entirely unconnected.
“The PRA’s distinction between personal and presidential records has no bearing on whether a former President’s possession of documents containing national defense information is authorized under the Espionage Act,” the government succinctly asserted in court.
