Judge Aileen Cannon agrees to partial pause in Trump’s classified documents trial

Judge Aileen Cannon granted a temporary delay in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida to consider the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s sweeping immunity ruling earlier this week.

The Trump appointee agreed to the former president’s legal team’s request Saturday afternoon, imposing a two-week delay for three pending deadlines in the case. Trump’s team made the request Friday, arguing that the Supreme Court’s immunity decision had to be considered and they should be allowed to argue the merits before the trial moves forward.

Cannon imposed a July 18 deadline for special counsel Jack Smith’s team to respond to the motion to stay and a July 21 deadline for any other reply.

Saturday’s order was only a partial victory for Trump, whose team requested the entire case, except for a pending dispute over a gag order, be put on pause in order to brief Cannon on the effects of the Supreme Court’s decision.

Cannon moved the July 8 deadline for Trump’s teams Rule 16 expert disclosures; a discovery deadline of July 10; and the July 10 deadline for Smith’s teams CIPA §§ 5-6 submission.

“Resolution of these threshold questions is necessary to minimize the adverse consequences to the institution of the Presidency arising from this unconstitutional investigation and prosecution,” Trump’s attorneys wrote on Friday.

Trump’s attorneys argued the stay was necessary to ensure the Department of Justice would follow the “general admonition that politics should play no role in investigative decisions.”

They also pointed to President Joe Biden’s public comments about the Supreme Court’s decision as evidence the DOJ was trying to speed up the case so it would be resolved before Election Day.

“President Biden’s public comments following the Trump decision on July 1, 2024, confirmed the ongoing violations of DOJ policy and practice arising from Jack Smith’s efforts to rush this deeply flawed case—and the similarly flawed and politically-motivated Trump case in the District of Columbia—to trial,” they wrote. “Referring to Smith’s prosecution in the District of Columbia, President Biden argued that ‘the American people deserve to have an answer in the courts before the upcoming election.’ The remark explicitly connected the Special Counsel’s Office with President Biden’s misuse of the criminal justice system to communicate with voters prior to the election.”

It’s not clear how the court’s ruling will affect Trump’s case in Florida, as the search of his Mar-a-Lago home by the FBI to recover the documents in question was made after he left the White House.

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But Trump has had some success already arguing the immunity ruling should be weighed in cases that involve his actions when he wasn’t the president.

Trump’s team won a delay in his sentencing in New York following his guilty conviction in the hush money case involving porn actress Stormy Daniels when he was a candidate.