Federal prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith fired back against a court motion filed by President Donald Trump to push back court deadlines in his upcoming classified documents trial.
The special counsel’s attorneys said they are open to a short delay period but stipulated that President Trump’s request would take too long.
“Instead, defendants argue for a schedule that would delay proceedings by over three months,” the motion said, adding, “The defendants already have more than sufficient discovery to provide the Court with a description of the type of information they consider relevant and helpful.
“The defendants’ motion can and should be denied on this ground alone,” it said.
Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon set deadlines for how to handle several motions that fall under the Classified Information Procedures Act, referenced heavily by both the Trump team and special counsel’s team, which includes rules on how to deal with the classified documents in the case.
While a large portion of prosecutors’ filing deals with the processes of handling classified materials during the trial, their filing gave also more insight into the behind-the-scenes legal wrangling over the classified documents. So far, Mr. Smith’s team said they handed over 1.28 million pages of classified materials, including transcripts and witness interviews.
Earlier in September, Judge Cannon ruled that discussions President Trump has with his attorneys about classified records must take place in a secure government location in Miami. The Trump team has objected to that ruling, arguing that it would be unfeasible for the former president, who is currently the Republican frontrunner for the 2024 presidential election, to do so and also said that his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach is a secure location.
“The limitations on disclosure of classified information set forth in this Order are binding on Defendant and his counsel and violations may result in criminal and/or civil penalties,” the U.S. district judge wrote in mid-September. The version prosecutors proposed called for the order to be “forever binding.”
Other Cases
The former president’s attorneys have also accused federal prosecutors in a separate court motion of failing to provide all the classified materials required under the discovery process. The classified material is needed by them, they wrote, regarding what prosecutors should be able to redact.President Trump is charged with four federal felonies in the case, and he has pleaded not guilty. Federal prosecutors also charged two of his aides in connection to the alleged violations in handling classified records.
The former president is also under separate indictments in Washington, D.C., and Georgia over his alleged efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden and in New York over a hush-money payment he paid to an adult film actress. He denies wrongdoing.
Also, the former president has publicly shown a willingness to testify at the classified documents trial, telling a radio host, Hugh Hewitt, earlier this month that “I look forward to testifying.” He also denied claims that he told a Mar-a-Lago staffer to delete the Palm Beach resort’s security footage.
President Trump also denied wrongdoing after an ABC report alleged that one of his assistants told federal investigators he repeatedly wrote to-do lists for her on documents from the White House marked classified.
The aide, Molly Michael, told investigators that more than once she got requests or tasks from President Trump written on the back of notecards that she later recognized as sensitive White House materials, ABC reported on Sept. 18, citing anonymous sources. The notecards had visible classification markings used to brief Trump while he was still in office about phone calls with foreign leaders or other international matters, the news outlet said.
But a Trump spokesperson dismissed the report as “illegal leaks” and denied wrongdoing. Ms. Michael has not publicly commented on the reports, either.
