Trump Legal professionals Search Indefinite Postponement of Paperwork Trial

Legal professionals for former President Donald J. Trump requested a federal decide on Monday evening to indefinitely postpone his trial on expenses of illegally retaining labeled paperwork after he left workplace, saying that the continuing mustn’t start till all “substantive motions” within the case had been introduced and determined.

The written submitting — submitted half-hour earlier than its deadline of midnight on Tuesday — presents a major early take a look at for Choose Aileen M. Cannon, the Trump-appointed jurist who’s overseeing the case. If granted, it might have the impact of pushing Mr. Trump’s trial into the ultimate levels of the presidential marketing campaign wherein he’s now the Republican front-runner and even previous the 2024 election.

Whereas timing is essential in any felony matter, it might be vastly consequential in Mr. Trump’s case, wherein he stands accused of illegally holding on to 31 labeled paperwork after leaving the White Home and obstructing the federal government’s repeated efforts to reclaim them.

There might be issues of a form by no means earlier than introduced to a court docket if Mr. Trump is a candidate within the final legs of a presidential marketing campaign and a federal felony defendant on trial on the identical time. If the trial is pushed again till after the election and Mr. Trump wins, he might attempt to pardon himself after taking workplace or have his lawyer common dismiss the matter completely.

Among the former president’s advisers have been blunt in non-public conversations that he’s seeking to profitable the election as an answer to his authorized issues. And the request for an open-ended delay to the trial of Mr. Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, a private aide, presents a high-stakes query for Choose Cannon, who got here into the case already beneath scrutiny for making selections favorable to the previous president within the early phases of the investigation.

Mr. Trump’s legal professionals pitched their request to Choose Cannon as a plea for cautious deliberation and as a method of safeguarding democracy.

“This extraordinary case presents a severe problem to each the actual fact and notion of our American democracy,” wrote the legal professionals, Chris M. Kise and Todd Blanche for Mr. Trump, and Stanley Woodward Jr. and Sasha Dadan for Mr. Nauta.

“The court docket now presides over a prosecution superior by the administration of a sitting president towards his chief political rival, himself a number one candidate for the presidency of america,” they wrote. “Subsequently, a measured consideration and timeline that enables for a cautious and full overview of the procedures that led to this indictment and the unprecedented authorized points introduced herein finest serves the pursuits of the defendants and the general public.”

The legal professionals additionally took word of the bizarre intertwining of regulation and politics within the case, suggesting that Mr. Trump’s standing as a presidential candidate ought to be factored into the timing of the trial.

“President Trump is working for president of america and is presently the seemingly Republican Celebration nominee,” they wrote. “This endeavor requires an incredible period of time and power, and that effort will proceed till the election on Nov. 5, 2024.”

“Mr. Nauta’s job requires him to accompany President Trump throughout most marketing campaign journeys across the nation,” they continued. “This schedule makes trial preparation with each of the defendants difficult. Such preparation requires important planning and time.”

The submitting got here in response to 1 submitted final month by prosecutors working for the particular counsel, Jack Smith, who requested a trial date of Dec. 11. Choose Cannon, showing to undertake the brisk calendar mandated by the Speedy Trial Act, had initially scheduled the case to go to trial in August.

On Monday, hours earlier than Mr. Trump’s legal professionals requested a delay of the trial, a lawyer for Mr. Nauta requested Choose Cannon to postpone a listening to to debate the difficulty of the labeled supplies within the case that was scheduled for Friday. The protection and the prosecution in the end agreed to delay the listening to, which is able to happen in Federal District Court docket in Fort Pierce, Fla., till subsequent Tuesday.

Choose Cannon nonetheless has to grant her approval for that schedule change.

In making their case to delay the trial, Mr. Trump’s legal professionals cited the expansive discovery proof supplied to them by the federal government.

The primary discovery disclosure, they mentioned, contained greater than 833,450 pages of fabric, together with about 122,650 emails and 305,670 different paperwork. The legal professionals mentioned that after subsequent troves of proof have been handed over, they’d almost certainly make extra requests to the federal government for additional info.

In addition they pointed to the complicated technique of deciding how one can deal with the delicate supplies on the coronary heart of the case beneath the Categorised Info Procedures Act — the topic of the listening to that had been scheduled for Friday. The legal professionals strongly hinted that they have been going to battle the federal government through the pretrial litigation over labeled materials, a course of that would take up important quantities of time.

“Generally, the defendants consider there ought to merely be no ‘secret’ proof, nor any information hid from public view relative to the prosecution of a number one presidential candidate by his political opponent,” the legal professionals wrote. “Our democracy calls for a minimum of full transparency.”

Except for its request for a delay, the submitting served as a preview of Mr. Trump’s authorized technique because the legal professionals laid out methods wherein they deliberate to assault his indictment.

They urged, for instance, that they supposed to problem a few of the expenses he’s dealing with by arguing that the Presidential Data Act permitted Mr. Trump to take paperwork with him from the White Home. That interpretation of the Watergate-era regulation is at odds with how authorized consultants interpret it and was not profitable throughout an prolonged authorized battle final 12 months over an out of doors arbiter who was put in place to overview a trove of supplies seized by the F.B.I. from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s non-public membership and residence in Florida.

The previous president’s legal professionals additionally urged that they could elevate “constitutional and statutory challenges” to Mr. Smith’s authority as particular counsel. Furthermore, they laid the groundwork for questioning whether or not an neutral jury might be seated on the trial whereas Mr. Trump was working for workplace.

“There may be merely no query any trial of this motion through the pendency of a presidential election will influence each the result of that election,” they wrote, “and, importantly, the power of the defendants to acquire a good trial.”