Trump classified documents trial date set for May 2024

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A US federal judge has set a new trial date in the case over Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of sensitive government documents. The trial is now scheduled to kick off in May 2024. 

The trial was originally set to begin in a Florida courthouse next month, but the original timeline “would deny counsel for the defendant[s] or the attorney[s] for the government the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation”, according to an order from US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Friday.

Trump remains the undisputed frontrunner in an increasingly crowded field of Republicans vying for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024, with opinion polls showing he enjoys the support of roughly half of Republican voters.

The trial’s start date may change yet again. If proceedings do begin as currently scheduled in late May 2024, that would probably come after the primary elections when Republican voters will select the party’s nominee, but before an official nominating convention in July of that year. As a result, the former president’s trial could take place with him as the party’s presumptive nominee for the White House.

Trump has vowed to press on with his presidential campaign despite mounting legal woes.

Last month, Trump was charged with 37 criminal counts including conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealing documents in a federal investigation and making false statements. Trump has pleaded not guilty and has called the case, brought by special counsel Jack Smith, politically motivated.

The trial is linked to secret government material FBI agents seized at the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago residence last year. According to the indictment, the documents included information on US nuclear programmes and military vulnerabilities that Trump brought to Florida after leaving the White House in 2021. 

In her order on Friday, Judge Cannon picked a trial date in between the government’s request to start proceedings in December and Trump’s petition to wait until after the 2024 presidential elections. She said the schedule sought by the government was “atypically accelerated and inconsistent with ensuring a fair trial”, envisioning a trial date less than six months from the first production of discovery in June in a case including more than 1.1mn pages of non-classified material and at least nine months of camera footage.

The Trump team welcomed the judge’s decision on Friday, which a campaign spokesperson called a “major setback to the DoJ’s crusade to deny President Trump a fair legal process”. Trump has repeatedly accused Joe Biden, the US president who will seek re-election in 2024, of weaponising the Department of Justice against him.

The decision to set a new trial date comes just days after Trump said he had received a letter from the DoJ notifying him he was the target of a separate probe linked to the events leading up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

The former president on Tuesday said the letter from Smith, who is overseeing the probe, had given him “a very short four days to report to the grand jury, which almost always means an arrest and indictment”. 

If charges are brought, it would be the third criminal case against Trump this year. The former president in April pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney. Trump was accused of arranging a scheme to kill negative stories leading up to the 2016 presidential election that included “hush money” payments made to an adult film actress.

Another legal challenge could come from the state of Georgia, where a special grand jury has investigated alleged meddling in the 2020 presidential election by the ex-president and others. If local prosecutors decide to bring charges, they are widely expected to materialise this summer.

Separately on Friday, Trump’s business group, the Trump Organization, agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by his former lawyer Michael Cohen in New York, days before a trial was set to begin. Cohen had sought to recoup more than $1mn in legal fees from his former employer, allegedly accrued after he began co-operating with federal prosecutors in their investigations over Trump’s links to Russia. Lawyers for Cohen confirmed the settlement, but declined to disclose the agreed sum.

Trump has sued Cohen in a separate case pending in Florida, and the former attorney is set to be a star witness in the Manhattan hush-money case against him, which is scheduled for trial next year.