(CN) — Claiming that issues obtaining evidence in the classified documents case justifies a delay, former President Donald Trump's lawyers are seeking to push back the trial date until after next year’s presidential election.
The lawyers said in a 12-page motion filed late Wednesday that they needed more time to prepare for the trial and proposed the judge reschedule it for mid-November 2024.
“The demands of the Special Counsel’s Office must give way to the constitutional rights of the defendants and the interests of judicial economy,” the attorneys wrote.
Trump is set to face 40 charges, mostly violations of the Espionage Act, at trial beginning on May 20 in Florida. But his attorneys told Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee, that the U.S. Department of Justice has delayed in turning over classified documents and that a permanent facility meant to store the sensitive records still has not been established.
Attorneys for Trump and his co-defendants, former employees Carlos De Oliveira and Walt Nauta, have battled with prosecutors for months over the classified documents Trump is accused of mishandling after he left the White House.
Last month, Cannon ordered attorneys to store classified materials at all times in a secure facility overseen by an information security officer, who is responsible for ensuring defense attorneys have access. Defense attorney notes and other memoranda must remain at the facility, and the parties cannot discuss classified information in a non-secure location.
As it stands, Trump’s attorneys said Wednesday, they can review the records only at a “small, temporary facility” in Miami, a position that has delayed the former president’s ability to personally inspect them. A permanent facility is planned, but it will take more than three months to establish, the motion states.
Prosecutors have also failed to turn over nine classified documents tied to Trump’s charges, which his defense attorneys called “some of the most basic discovery in the case,” as well as other classified materials.
“Given the current schedule, we cannot understate the prejudice to President Trump arising from his lack of access to these critical materials months after they should have been produced,” attorneys wrote.
The Department of Justice told the court last week in a filing it has provided defense attorneys about 1.28 million pages of unclassified documents, as well as the majority of the classified evidence it anticipates producing. Some classified documents remain inaccessible because defense attorneys have not completed the security procedures, which is outside the department’s control, according to the department’s filing.
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