The federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case has handed the prosecutorial team some bad news.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, turned down a request from special counsel Jack Smith’s team not to delay a preliminary hearing in the case involving both Trump and his valet Walt Nauta that was initially scheduled for Friday.
Cannon agreed to reschedule the hearing until July 18, according to ABC News.
“Nauta’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, had requested the delay due to a timing conflict with a bench trial he has to attend as defense counsel for a defendant charged in the Justice Department’s investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack,” the report said.
Jay Bratt, who is the lead federal prosecutor on Smith’s team, opposed the delay, arguing in his brief, “There is a strong public interest in the conference occurring as originally scheduled and the case proceeding as expeditiously as possible.”
Cannon’s ruling comes after Trump’s legal team made a nighttime court filing on Monday seeking to delay the trial until after the 2024 election. Trump currently leads the GOP field by double digits, according to polls.
Smith has already argued in a filing that he wants to go to trial in December because he said the case “involves straightforward theories of liability, and does not present novel questions of fact or law,” the Washington Post reported
Smith charged Trump with 37 counts related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Last week, investigative reporter Paul Sperry claimed to have seen new evidence that the August 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate by the FBI was indeed “political” and called out Bratt by name.
Smith has already argued in a filing that he wants to go to trial in December because he said the case “involves straightforward theories of liability, and does not present novel questions of fact or law,” the Washington Post reported.
Smith charged Trump with 37 counts related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Last week, investigative reporter Paul Sperry claimed to have seen new evidence that the August 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate by the FBI was indeed “political” and called out Bratt by name.
In follow-up tweets, he noted that the warrant acknowledged that “additional documents bearing classification markings … have been produced to the government in response to a grand jury subpoena” and that, on page 18, it says Trump “agreed to accept service of a grand jury subpoena.”