Trump-appointed judge will decide if special counsel Jack Smith is legally assigned in Mar-a-Lago case

Donald Trump’s classified documents case in Florida is moving ahead without any trial date in sight.

Instead, the federal judge presiding over the case has heard motion after motion from defense attorneys in their long-shot attempt to dismiss the charges against the former president and his co-defendants while attacking the prosecutors who brought the case against them.

On Friday, US District Judge Aileen Cannon — who was appointed to the bench by Trump — will hold a daylong hearing that questions the credibility of special counsel Jack Smith, and whether he was lawfully appointed under the Constitution.

The pretrial hearing is the first of five that Judge Cannon has scheduled over three days. Trump is not required to attend.

In a rare move, she is allowing nonparties in the case to argue inside the courtroom on Friday, rather than in briefs submitted to the court.

The judge will hear from Josh Blackman with the conservative Landmark Legal Foundation as well as Gene Schaerr, who represents right-wing Citizen United legal advocacy group and a Heritage Foundation-linked group of former Republican attorneys general.

The attorneys are arguing in support of Trump’s motion to dismiss the charges against him by claiming that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed.

In a motion to argue in support of Trump, the groups claimed that the Supreme Court “will take a keen interest” in the judge’s decision, signaling that a challenge at the nation’s highest court could follow, further prolonging a trial over Trump’s allegedly unlawful retention of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago compound.

Judge Cannon also allowed one constitutional law expert, Matthew Seligman with Stanford’s Constitutional Law Center, to defend Smith’s