Former United States President Donald Trump won a partial victory in his legal challenges after Judge Aileen Cannon ordered a temporary pause on the deadlines about the Republican businessman's hush money case.
The case involves alleged payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels and is one of many legal challenges the former president faces. The pause will affect a series of significant pre-trial deadlines of prosecutors' sharing of sensitive materials that Trump is entitled to while building his defense in the case.
Judge Grants Temporary Pause in Trump Case
Judge Cannon authorized a paperless order that delayed the deadline she previously set for October 2023 through May 2024. The latter is when the trial for the former president and his three co-defendants in the case is scheduled to start in Fort Pierce, Florida.
While the federal judge's order does not address the May 20 start date for the trial, it did note that all of the scheduled deadlines that were connected to classified information were put on hold "pending consideration and resolution" of a Trump motion that proposed a new timeline when it was filed last month, as per Yahoo News.
The filing on Sept. 22 accused special counsel Jack Smith's team of making allegedly unjust efforts to "foist rushed CIPA litigation on the Court, President Trump, and his co-defendants." On Wednesday, a separate motion was filed by the former president's legal team, making the trial schedule a point of contention after Trump requested a delay of at least six months with regard to the trial's start date that would push it beyond the 2024 presidential elections.
That particular motion cited ongoing legal litigation over the sensitive evidence alongside scheduling conflicts with Trump's other federal criminal case in Washington, DC. In the filing, Trump's attorneys said that the Mar. 4, 2023, trial date and the underlying schedule in the hush money case require the defendant and his lawyers to be in two places at once.
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Partial Legal Victory
However, some legal experts questioned Cannon's decision on Friday and suggested it could pave the way for the former president to delay the trial date. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, national security lawyer Bradley Moss said that the real question now is how long it would take Cannon to rule on the matter.
At the center of the case is how the defendants and their attorneys will handle the classified materials based on national security requirements. Trump and his attorneys argued last month that he and his co-defendants have not yet had access to "significant portions of the materials," according to ABC News.
The classified materials involved in the case are so sensitive, prosecutors said, that they cannot be stored even in the highly secure facility in Miami that Trump and his legal team have been using. They argued that the items must be reviewed under strict supervision in Washington to avoid potential issues, said the New York Times.
