Trump’s classified documents case just cleared a major hurdle moving it closer to trial

18 June 2024

Lawyers representing former President Donald Trump in his classified documents trial just met a key deadline imposed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.

On Tuesday, legal news website Law & Crime reported that attorneys Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and Christopher Kise filed a notice that they planned to use classified documents as part of their defense strategy. The filing is in response to a June 14 order by Judge Cannon to comply with § 5(a) of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA). That particular section of the law governs how classified information is to be used in criminal court proceedings.

"The linchpin of CIPA is section 5(a), which requires a defendant who reasonably intends to disclose (or cause the disclosure of) classified information to provide timely pretrial written notice of his intention to the Court and the Government,” the Department of Justice says. “Section 5(a) expressly requires that such notice include a brief description of the classified information,’ and the leading case under section 5(a) holds that such notice must be particularized, setting forth specifically the classified information which the defendant reasonably believes to be necessary to his defense."

Because the information itself is still classified, public-facing documents don't detail exactly what documents Trump plans to use in his own defense. However, the filing marks significant progress in the Mar-a-Lago case, as the CIPA § 5(a) deadline was one of the key pre-trial hurdles to be cleared before the scheduling of a trial date.

Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith has long been prodding Judge Cannon about making the defense submit their CIPA § 5(a) filing, given that the original deadline was November of 2023. However, Trump's lawyers argued that the New York hush money cover-up trial required them to prioritize that case and requested numerous extensions that Cannon granted.

Despite the latest development, no trial date has been scheduled so far, and Judge Cannon appears to not be in any hurry to put a date on the calendar. Law & Crime reported that last week, Cannon granted a third extension to co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira — Trump's body man and Mar-a-Lago's property manager, respectively — to comply with an expert witness disclosure deadline.

Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020, has also indefinitely paused trial proceedings in the Mar-a-Lago case. She cited a backlog of pre-trial motions she has yet to rule on as the reason for scuttling the initial May 20 trial date, and said that she may need until late July to complete the pre-trial process.

The classified documents case is seen as Smith's strongest, given the wealth of evidence the DOJ has accumulated since its 2022 raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Smith indicted Trump on 37 felony counts last June, with charges including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal and making false statements.

"This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida, and I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charge," Smith stated after the indictment was made public.

"We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. Applying those laws, collecting facts – that’s what determines the outcome of an investigation, Nothing more. Nothing less,” he added. Smith emphasized that violations of federal law governing classified information “put our country at risk."

Click here to read Law & Crime's report in full.

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