CNN
—
Like Manhattan Hush money case The case against Donald Trump is nearing its end, with a new phase of pretrial proceedings beginning Wednesday Federal classified documents case The former president faces Florida.
U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon will hear arguments from defense attorneys in two separate attempts to have the charges thrown out in the case. In the first motion, Trump's valet and co-defendant Walt Nauta alleges that he is being sued in retaliation, and in the second, Trump and his co-defendants argue that the indictment contains technical flaws.
Trump was accused by special counsel Jack Smith of taking classified national security documents from the White House after he left office and resisting the government's efforts to retrieve the materials. Trump, Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira have pleaded not guilty.
Trump has received permission from a judge to skip Wednesday's proceedings, which begin at 10 a.m. at a courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida.
This will be his first hearing before a judge since then Delayed indefinitely The trial was scheduled to begin earlier this week. It's been more than a month since the judge last held a public, in-person hearing in the case — though he held at least one sealed hearing.
In adjourning the hearing, Cannon pointed to a mountain of unresolved pre-trial issues for not putting a new date on the calendar. Wednesday begins an extension of hearings scheduled for late July that will get the case through some — but not all — pre-trial hurdles.
Slow speed of the cannon in the case It has attracted criticism from outside legal experts, a Trump-appointed judge has accused the GOP's presumptive White House nominee of playing late tricks. Unless Cannon picks up his pace significantly, the charges are unlikely to go before a jury before the 2024 election. If Trump wins the White House, the charges against him are expected to go away.
From the US Department of Justice
This photo from the U.S. Department of Justice shows Walt Nauta moving boxes into former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Until recently, many of Trump's key proposals attacking the prosecution were not publicly documented. Proceedings are mired in debate over what should be revised in public filings.
On Tuesday, hundreds of pages of previously sealed court filings were released Published publicly As part of the former president's attempt to get the charges against him thrown out. Those filings include a previously unsealed March 2023 ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that found there was « sufficient » evidence that Trump committed crimes and allowed investigators to obtain information from his former attorney.
Trump is seeking to toss out that evidence, as well as evidence obtained in an August 2022 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, from which investigators obtained several documents that are the basis of several impeachment charges against Trump.
Those motions are not scheduled for argument Wednesday, and Cannon has not yet set a hearing.
In his order Sunday, Cannon attacked prosecutors for allowing the filings to be made public — one of several swipes at Smith's office. He expressed « concern » that the special counsel's office had requested redactions of information in the newly unsealed documents after it gave its collapse before full disclosure in earlier court filings.
“The court is disappointed with these developments. « The sealing and restitution provisions must be consistently and reasonably applied upon a sufficient factual and legal showing, » Cannon wrote. « Parties may not make claims that undermine any prior representation or position except upon full disclosure and appropriate explanation to the court. »
