The federal judge presiding over the classified documents prosecution of former president Donald Trump has given him exactly what he wants, according to a former federal prosecutor.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, on Tuesday canceled the May 20 trial date, and postponed it indefinitely. It would be “imprudent” to finalize a new trial date because of the unresolved motions in the case, she wrote in an order on Tuesday.
“This case could and should have been ready for trial in December or January if she had been working on the motions and realistic deadlines all along,” Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama who was nominated by then-President Barack Obama, wrote in her newsletter, Civil Discourse.
Vance noted that Trump’s legal team had asked Cannon in July last year to postpone consideration of a new trial date “until after substantive motions have been presented and adjudicated.”
Trump is facing dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents that he took with him after he left the White House in 2021 at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and then obstructing the government’s efforts to get them back. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and denied wrongdoing.
Donald Trump on May 11, 2024, in Wildwood, New Jersey. The judge presiding over Trump’s classified documents trial has given him exactly what he wants, according to a former federal prosecutor.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
“She didn’t then; she scheduled the May trial date,” Vance wrote. “But now, she has given Trump what he wanted all along, and it’s contrary to what the law directs judges to do.”
Newsweek has contacted Vance and representatives of Trump via email for further comment.
It is among four criminal cases that Trump is facing as he seeks to win back the White House. He is currently on trial in Manhattan in a case charging him in connection with alleged hush money payments that were made during the 2016 presidential election. But it is not clear if the other three will reach trial before November’s election.
In the classified documents case, it has been clear that the trial would not start in May as Cannon “let critical motions stack up and refused to rule,” Vance wrote in her newsletter.
The Speedy Trial Act directs judges to set a trial date at the beginning of a case before motions are even filed, she wrote, but “here, we have a judge who won’t set a trial date because of eight motions that are still pending on her docket because she has refrained from deciding them.”
Motions that Cannon has decided are worth a hearing include some that most judges would have given little consideration to, according to Vance.
Vance points to a three-day hearing in June that Cannon has scheduled on a motion Trump has filed to broaden the scope of what is meant by “prosecution team.”
“It sounds like she’s serious about a motion that would be routinely denied in any other court, forcing the government to needlessly expend time and resources only to give the judge an excuse to delay the case further,” Vance wrote.
She concluded: “It’s not a cliché to say that justice delayed is justice denied. With this case, we understand exactly what it means. Defendants aren’t the only ones with Speedy Trial Act rights; they belong to the people, too—or at least, they’re supposed to.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.