Justice Dept. asks for Trump classified documents trial to begin in December

The Justice Department is requesting that the federal trial in its unprecedented criminal case against former president Donald Trump begin in December — a timetable that Trump's attorneys are expected to contest, according to a court document filed Friday evening.

Earlier this week, Judge Aileen Cannon, the federal judge in South Florida presiding over the case who will ultimately decide when the trial begins, set a start date for August.

But such an early date is not expected to stick. The government's case against Trump and his aide, Walt Nauta, is centered on numerous classified documents, which requires lawyers on both sides to adhere to stringent and often time-consuming laws intended to ensure that Trump's legal team and the jury are able to view the evidence while protecting the government secrets.

When announcing the indictment, special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the case for the Justice Department, said he would push for a speedy trial.

Trials involving classified documents can drag on, but a relatively quick timetable is crucial if the government wants the trial to be finished before the 2024 presidential race. Trump is the leading Republican candidate and he and some of some of his GOP competitors have slammed the investigation as partisan, suggesting that any one of them may try to force the Justice Department to drop the case if elected.

Federal prosecutors said in its Friday court filing that they have asked to delay Cannon's proposed timetable by about four months — with jury selection beginning Dec. 11 — because Trump's lawyers will need up to two months to obtain the security clearance required to view some of the classified documents. The government alleged in its indictment against Trump that the former president improperly retained 31 classified documents at his Florida residence, some of which include information about a foreign country's nuclear and military capabilities.

Trump's legal team did not immediately respond to a request on Friday evening. The government indicated in the court filing that prosecutors have been communicating with Trump's lawyers and expect them to file a motion opposing the timeline. The government did not indicate what Trump's lawyers' opposition could be, but the former president has a long history of delaying legal proceedings.

The case will ultimately be tried under the rules of the Classified Information Procedures Act, or CIPA — a law that spells out pretrial steps that must be taken to decide what classified information will be used in court and how.

In its Friday court filings, the government formally declared to Cannon that the case involves classified documents and requested a pretrial CIPA conference — a necessary step to begin the CIPA proceedings.

"The case does involve classified information and will necessitate defense counsel obtaining the requisite security clearances," the filing reads. "As the Court is aware, that process is already underway."

The filing, which was signed Smith, also noted that starting the trial before the end of the year is reasonable because the case "is not so unusual or complex."

"It has only two defendants, involves straightforward theories of liability, and does not present novel questions of fact or law," the filing states.

The government filed a 38-count indictment against Trump and Nauta on June 8. Trump pleaded not guilty in front of a magistrate judge in Florida the following week. During that hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman ordered the former president not to speak with witnesses about the facts of the case, asking the government to submit a list of witnesses.

The government said Friday that it has submitted a list of 84 witnesses that Trump should not speak to about the case as it proceeds. The names of those witnesses are under seal, and the government says that list is not the exhaustive list of witnesses it might call at trial.

Smith and his team said they already started producing nonclassified evidence earlier this week for Trump's attorneys to view as part of the discovery process.

Those nonclassified materials include, according to the court filing, "documents obtained via subpoena, evidence obtained via warrants, transcripts of grand jury testimony, memorialization of witness interviews, a reproduction of key documents that in the government's view are pertinent to the case, and copies of closed-circuit television footage the government has obtained during its investigation."

Assuming Trump's lawyers have obtained the necessary security clearance, the government said it could give them the initial batch of classified materials to review by July 10.

"It's a reasonable deadline and reflective of how willing the government is to make sure that this case is resolved before the election," said Brandon Van Grack, a lawyer in private practice who previously worked classified-mishandling cases as a federal prosecutor.

Cannon, 42, was nominated by Trump during his final year in office and has less than three years on the federal bench.

Last fall, she issued a controversial ruling in response to a lawsuit Trump filed that initially delayed the FBI review of classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. She was roundly reversed by a conservative panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

Federal court officials in southern Florida have said Cannon was assigned randomly to preside over the trial after Trump was indicted by a Miami grand jury this month.