Judge Aileen Cannon pushes back on idea that more hearings will delay Trump classified documents case

CNN —

Judge Aileen Cannon wants to hold additional hearings on Donald Trump’s attempts to challenge key evidence in his classified documents case and will allow the former president’s lawyers to question witnesses about the investigation and search of Mar-a-Lago.

On Thursday, the Florida-based judge said in a new order that she wants more evidence about the language in the FBI warrant used to seize classified records from Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and about grand jury testimony from Trump’s former attorney, Evan Corcoran.

Those issues were argued in hearings on Tuesday, but Cannon did not rule on the matters. The judge did not say when additional hearings would be held.

Cannon has been widely criticized for dragging out the case over multiple hearings, and a prosecutor at the hearing earlier this week told her he believed the Trump team was trying to hijack the proceedings as a way to spread conspiracies about the work of federal investigators on this case.

In her 11-page order Thursday, Cannon seemed to push back on her critics.

“There is a difference between a resource-wasting and delay-producing ‘mini-trial,’ on the one hand, and an evidentiary hearing geared to adjudicating the contested factual and legal issues on a given pre-trial motion to suppress,” Cannon wrote.

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