Judge indefinitely postpones Trump’s trial date in Mar-A-Lago classified documents case

A federal judge has indefinitely delayed the trial date in the special counsel case against Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents.

In a decision filed on Tuesday, US district judge Aileen M Cannon vacated a planned 20 May trial date, writing that a host of issues around evidence, discovery, and the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) still needed to be decided before the high-profile trial could commence.

Judge Cannon, a former federal prosecutor who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020, argued in her decision that extending the pre-trial process through the end of July would “outweigh the best interest of the public and Defendants in a speedy trial.”

The former president faces 40 separate federal charges in the case, stemming from allegedly holding onto hundreds of classified documents after leaving the White House for his private Mar-a-Lago home and club in Florida, then conspiring to obstruct government attempts to retrieve the materials. He has pleaded not guilty.

Outside of the trial date question, the classified documents case has yielded other revelations about Mr Trump’s time since leaving office.

In documents unsealed this week, the former president’s valet and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, described Mr Trump essentially choosing at random which documents to return to the National Archives as he wrapped up his presidential affairs.

“What I recall is every time he would leave for the evening, they would come up, and they would collect all the papers that he threw on the floor; or that – at the time – we understood that he didn’t need any more,” Mr Nauta told FBI agents investigating the case.

The decision from Judge Cannon means that the former president’s ongoing hush money