Trump again presses for delay of classified documents trial until 2025

Lawyers for Donald Trump have once again suggested to the federal judge overseeing his criminal case on retaining classified documents that the trial should not take place this year, even as they complied with a court order that forced them to propose a potential start date.

On Thursday, the former president reluctantly proposed two trial dates, under orders from US district judge Aileen Cannon: a 12 August trial date for Trump and the Mar-a-Lago club maintenance chief Carlos De Oliveira, and a 9 September trial date for Trump’s valet Walt Nauta.

But the nine-page court filing from Trump was clear in its tone and reasoning that a trial should not take place until 2025, claiming that prosecutors were seeking to rush to trial on an unprecedented schedule because they wanted an outcome before the presidential election in November.

In a filing submitted at the same time on Thursday, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel Jack Smith asked Cannon to schedule the trial for 8 July for all three defendants, a date that would almost certainly ensure that a verdict get returned before the 2024 election.

Trump’s request marked his latest attempt to push back the case, having taken every opportunity to ask Cannon to delay proceedings since he was indicted last year for violating the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice.

In their first request to delay the trial indefinitely, Trump claimed he could not get a fair trial while he was running for office, asking the judge to also take into account the political calendar in the months before the election.

That argument was repeated again in the new filing, which also claimed that Trump’s status as the presumptive GOP nominee meant prosecutors would be violating justice department