Court hearing set to review trial timing in Trump classified documents case

FORT PIERCE, Fla. - The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s trial for allegedly mishandling classified documents will oversee a hearing Tuesday that is expected to include a review of the case’s timeline and is likely to detail some of the rules involved in a prosecution that relies on classified materials.

The hearing marks the first time that lawyers on both sides of the case will appear before U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, with federal prosecutors and the former president’s defense attorneys set to gather in a courthouse about an hour north of downtown West Palm Beach.

Trump is not expected to be in court for the hearing Tuesday afternoon, which is likely to focus on administrative procedures regarding classified materials and the disagreement between the two sides about when the trial should begin. Federal prosecutors have argued for starting a trial in December, while Trump’s attorneys lobbied for scheduling it after the 2024 election, since Trump is running for president again.

The hearing is also taking place amid a backdrop of churning legal tumult for Trump, who is already facing criminal charges in Manhattan, a civil trial in New York related to fraud allegations and another civil case accusing him of defamation. A district attorney in the Atlanta area is also investigating whether Trump and his allies broke the law in their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in that state, with charging decisions expected there next month.

And on Tuesday morning, hours before the hearing was set to begin in Fort Pierce, Trump announced on social media that he had received a letter identifying him as a target of the long-running federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Such a letter does not guarantee that charges will be brought, but it does suggest investigators have gathered enough evidence to link the recipient to a crime.

In his social media post about the target letter, he assailed special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor leading that investigation along with the separate case focusing on Trump’s handling of classified materials.

Last month, the investigation involving the classified materials led to charges against Trump and a longtime aide, Waltine “Walt” Nauta. The two men were charged in a 38-count indictment that accused the former president of improperly retaining 31 classified documents at his Florida residence and enlisting his aide to help him secretly keep some of the materials despite government efforts to have them returned.

Both Trump and Nauta pleaded not guilty during court appearances before magistrate judges in Miami.

Much of the attention Tuesday is likely to be on Cannon, who Trump named to the bench in 2020. She had previously drawn intense scrutiny for intervening last year in the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified materials, agreeing with his request to order an outside review of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, his residence and private club. A federal appeals court panel later overturned her decision.

While the hearing in Fort Pierce is largely expected to focus on the nuts and bolts of conducting a criminal case based so heavily on classified government materials, an early point of contention between prosecutors and the defense has been over when the trial will begin. A day before the hearing, Cannon directed the two sides to come to court prepared to discuss that topic.

Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican nomination next year, and his attorneys have contended that holding the trial before the election is complete could impact its outcome, along with his ability to get a fair trial.

Federal prosecutors, in turn, have argued for beginning the trial before the end of this year, saying that should give Trump’s legal team ample time to review the materials during the discovery process. They also said jury selection might take longer in a case like this, but they argued that this is a reason to begin the trial sooner rather than delaying it.

The classified document case in South Florida will ultimately be a jury trial, and it will be tried under the rules of the Classified Information Procedures Act, or CIPA - a law that spells out pretrial steps that must be taken to decide what classified information will be used in court and how. The pretrial hearing Tuesday is a typical step in CIPA cases.