FORT PIERCE, Fla. (CN) — A federal judge agreed Tuesday to push back a pretrial hearing in Florida for former President Donald Trump, working to alleviate a conflict in a defense attorney's schedule.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, issued the order delaying what would have been a Friday hearing in her Fort Pierce courtroom until next Tuesday, July 18.
Stanley Woodward, an attorney for Trump's co-defendant Walt Nauta, had put in the request Monday night, noting that he was scheduled to appear in Washington, D.C., to defend a client involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
But one of the lawyers for Trump made a request as well for an indefinite delay. Chris Kise, a former solicitor general of Florida in the 2000s, argued in his filing that Trump's presidential campaign “requires a tremendous amount of time and energy.”
He also pointed to the volumes of documents that would have to be reviewed before trial.
"The government's request to begin a trial of this magnitude within six months of indictment is unreasonable, telling and would result in a miscarriage of justice," Kise wrote Monday.
Special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading Trump's prosecution on charges of mishandling classified documents, responded Wednesday with his first speedy trial report, which notes that all of the pretrial filings to date have already resulted in a 23-day delay of window that Trump must be tried under federal law.
Trump was arraigned on June 13, and the Speedy Trial Act of 1974 says trials need to begin within 70 days of when a defendant makes his initial appearance.
After accounting for every pretrial dispute so far, Smith said the date of Trump's trial is required to start by September 14.
Prosecutors have meanwhile proposed a trial date in December.
With the former president facing 37 federal counts, experts called the maneuver from Trump's legal team an expected one.
“If you're expected to be a presidential candidate for the campaign, you do not want to be fighting off a conviction in federal court,” said Danny Hayes, a political science professor from George Washington University. “It’s not surprising to me that Trump and his attorneys would push the trial date back.
“His approval hasn’t really come down since the indictment," Hayes added, "but I think this is a matter of his availability.”
Raff Donelson, associate professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law, surmised that Trump has his eye on November 2024.
“Essentially Trump is hoping to be elected," Donelson said. "There is a longstanding precedent that a sitting president cannot be indicted or tried.”
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