FORT PIERCE, Fla. — On Tuesday, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon promised to “promptly” release an order containing a trial date for former president Donald Trump’s classified documents case and, so far, that date still has not been set.
Attorneys for Trump and prosecutors from the Department of Justice each asked Cannon for very different trial dates in Trump’s classified documents case.
The DOJ is hoping for mid-December. However, Trump’s legal team is asking for the trial to be pushed back until sometime after the 2024 election.
The hearing in Fort Pierce ended without a date.
“Obviously, this is not a routine case, but routinely when you have a conference like this and there’s a motion to continue pending, the judge hears from everybody," David Weinstein, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said. "The judge hears about everybody’s schedules about what’s going on in the case, looks at his or her calendar, talks with the deputy clerk in the courtroom and says okay here’s what I’ve got available.”
However, that did not happen and Weinstein said that’s unusual.
“Unexpected, that she would take some time to craft an order that includes what the new trial date is,” Weinstein said. “I think the reason she wants to take a few days is, because everyone in the world is watching the case.”
Trump’s attorneys argued the trial should wait until after campaign season, because they’re worried it will be tough to seat an impartial jury during an election.
They’re also concerned about the former president’s schedule with several other pending legal matters, including a possible indictment related to the January 6th insurrection.
“At this point, it’s sort of a wait and see," Weinstein said. "Wait and see when the trial date is, wait and see if in fact there is an indictment returned up in the District of Columbia.”
Weinstein thinks Cannon will probably meet both sides in the middle and set a date for sometime in the Spring.
No date has been set at this point.
