Judge in Trump’s classified documents case postpones May trial indefinitely
WASHINGTON — The federal judge in Florida presiding over the classified documents prosecution of former President Trump has indefinitely postponed a trial that had been set for May 20.
The order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had been expected in light of unresolved issues in the case and because Trump is on trial in a separate case in Manhattan charging him in connection with hush money payments during the 2016 presidential election. The New York case involves several of the same lawyers representing him in the federal case in Florida.
Cannon said in a five-page order Tuesday that it would be “imprudent” to finalize a new trial date now, casting further doubt on federal prosecutors’ ability to bring Trump to trial before the November presidential election.
Trump faces dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., classified documents that he took with him after he left the White House in 2021, then obstructing the FBI’s efforts to get them back. He has pleaded not guilty.
Supreme Court may not rule for Trump, but it could give him a win by putting off his trial until after the election.
The porn actor’s testimony, even if sanitized and stripped of tell-all details, has been the most-awaited spectacle in Donald Trump’s hush money trial.
Trump faces four criminal cases as he seeks to reclaim the White House, but aside from the New York prosecution, it’s not clear that any of the others will reach trial before the election.
The Supreme Court is weighing Trump’s arguments that he is immune from federal prosecution in a separate case from special counsel Jack Smith charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., have brought a separate case related to election subversion, but procedural delays suggest that trial won’t start anytime soon.
Tucker writes for the Associated Press.
An encampment in the Juarez neighborhood of Mexico City shows how migration is impacting countries south of the U.S. border.
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