Chaos in the Classified Documents Case

livingston · Nov 5, 2023

Chaos in the Classified Documents Case

Amid conflicting trial schedules and discovery delays, Judge Aileen Cannon appears poised to postpone Donald Trump's May 2024 trial in Special Counsel Jack Smith's classified documents case.

At one point during a contentious hearing in her Florida courtroom on Wednesday afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon confronted the Department of Justice about its concurrent federal indictments against Donald Trump.

Cannon pressed Jay Bratt, the chief prosecutor on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case, to name another instance when the government brought charges against the same defendant on two different matters within a few months of each other. (Smith indicted the former president last June in the southern district of Florida for unlawfully keeping national defense information at Mar-a-Lago and obstruction of justice. Seven weeks later, Smith charged Trump in the District of Columbia with four counts related to the events of January 6.)
“Do you know of any other case where the same defendant is facing indictment in multiple jurisdictions and DOJ has taken the position that there should be no consideration to the fact that, of course, the defendant needs to be able to assist in his defense?” Cannon asked Bratt.

He had no answer.