The former president’s team was handed a minor win on Monday in the documents case.
The federal judge overseeing the Trump classified documents case handed defense lawyers a win on Monday, allowing a 10-day extension to file motions.
In a paperless order on Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted former President Donald Trump a 10-day extension, meaning that he shall file a reply to their pretrial motions by March 24. His lawyers had made the request this week, arguing that they are preparing for a separate criminal trial in New York over state charges that he allegedly falsified business records at the end of the 2016 election.
The former president’s attorneys wrote that both President Trump and his attorneys “are currently preparing for a trial in New York, New York that is scheduled to begin on March 25, 2024, and the need to simultaneously devote attention to that case.
“This matter has been necessitated in part by the discovery violations and strategic scheduling demands of the Special Counsel’s Office that have prejudiced President Trump in multiple respects,” they added.
The lawyers also asked Judge Cannon to grant them more time to prepare for a hearing in the documents case in order to file materials to support multiple previous trial objections. And, according to the lawyers, President Trump needs to travel to Fort Pierce, Florida, for a hearing in the case and needs more time to prepare.
But Jay Bratt, a Department of Justice (DOJ) official who handles certain counterintelligence matters and works under Mr. Smith, filed an objection to the lawyers’ request hours later, saying that “the fact that the defense must travel to Florida for a hearing on Thursday is not unique to those teams and poses no cause for such delay.”
And Mr. Bratt added that the filing from President Trump’s attorneys on Monday is a last-minute attempt to delay the case.
“The briefing schedule has been in place for months. Only now, on the eve of the reply deadline, does the defense complain that it needs more time—mostly based on circumstances about which they have been aware throughout the pendency of their motions,” the DOJ official wrote Monday.
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