Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday rejected a request from former President Donald Trump to delay the trial over his alleged misuse of classified documents until after the 2024 presidential election.
Trump’s legal team has said the Justice Department failed in its obligations to promptly produce all evidence in the case, a claim Smith called baseless in a new court filing.
“Defendants have repeatedly distorted the comprehensive, organized, and timely unclassified discovery provided by the government in order to mount an attack on the timeliness and thoroughness of productions and to allege that the government is in ‘persistent noncompliance.’ ‘.” Smith wrote. “The facts prove otherwise.”
The trial is currently scheduled for next May.
Trump’s lawyers claimed in a filing last week that they did not have access to all of the secret discovery, citing, among other things, a lack of secure facilities to process the evidence in the case.
However, the special counsel said that while the former president should have access to classified information, for example to be able to challenge the Justice Department’s evidence regarding the claim that the files he kept at his Florida estate contained national defense information, which most The allegations are based on unclassified evidence they have already received.
“That the classified materials at issue in this case were taken from the White House and stored at Mar-a-Lago is undisputed; At issue is how it happened, why it happened, what Trump knew and what Trump intended when he detained her — all questions the government will prove in court primarily with unclassified evidence,” Smith wrote.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case.
Smith’s filing came in response to a request from Trump’s attorneys Christopher Kise and Todd Blanche, who requested that the trial be moved to a date after the presidential election on November 5, 2024, citing discovery issues and conflicts with his other trials, including his. federal election interference is also being overseen by Smith and is scheduled for next March.
“The District of Columbia trial date of March 4, 2023 and the underlying schedule of this case currently require President Trump and his attorneys to be in two locations simultaneously,” Kise and Blanche wrote last week.
Smith noted that Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the confidential documents trial, has already rejected a previous attempt by Trump to schedule the trial after the 2024 presidential campaign.
