(The Center Square) – As former President Donald Trump’s defense team works to pick a jury in his New York hush money case, his attorneys are asking a judge in Florida for more time to prepare.
Trump’s legal team has asked Judge Aileen Cannon to push back deadlines in the Florida classified documents case. Specifically, Trump has asked that the May 9 deadline for expert disclosures and Classified Information Procedures Act notice be postponed until three weeks after the conclusion of the New York hush money trial.
Trump will spend four days a week in court in New York for the next six to eight weeks on state charges that he disguised hush money payments to two women as legal expenses during his 2016 campaign for president. In that case, Trump pleaded not guilty in April 2023 to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
In a federal case in Florida, Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 felony counts that allege he kept sensitive military documents, shared them with people who didn’t have security clearance, and tried to get around the government’s attempts to get them back.
Trump’s defense team cited the requirement that some parts of the case only be discussed in a Florida sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF.
“The May 9 deadlines will require lengthy classified submissions and extensive time in a SCIF to prepare and discuss those submissions, which is time President Trump and his attorneys simply do not have during the trial,” attorneys Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and Christopher Kise wrote in a motion.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Office has objected.
“This Court set the May 9 deadline fully apprised of defendant Trump’s New York trial,” prosecutors shot back. “Although the defendants’ motion reads as though the Court were unaware of Trump’s other case, and as if the defendants had no forewarning that a Section 5 deadline would be set, those premises are plainly wrong. The defendants have had ample notice that these deadlines would be scheduled and have already had months to complete the work.”
Trump’s team responded by saying the prosecution’s premise was “untethered to reality.”
“President Trump and his counsel have not been sitting idle over the past months and have worked diligently to advance the case forward,” the defense attorneys responded. “That said, certain tasks remain for completion which can only be accomplished in the Florida SCIF.”
Cannon had not ruled on the request as of Thursday, April 8, 2024.
Trump has repeatedly said that the civil and criminal charges he faces are the result of politically motivated prosecutions designed to keep him from returning to the White House.
Trump is gearing up for a rematch in November with President Joe Biden.