Left: Donald Trump (AP Photo/Mike Stewart), File); Center: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (U.S. Senate); Right: Special counsel Jack Smith (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
The defendants in the former President Donald Trump's case are requesting the judge to extend upcoming deadlines related to obtaining evidence. Mar-a-Lago For several months, the government, defendants, and the court have been debating the extent to which each side will ultimately access discovery information, which falls under the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA).
The heart of the matter is about what classified information defense counsel can use and reveal during the trial, which is subject to a mandatory notice requirement under CIPA Section 5. need access to, can access, and The heart of the matter is about what classified information defense counsel can use and reveal during the trial, which is subject to a mandatory notice requirement under CIPA Section 5. The core of the issue revolves around what classified information defense lawyers can utilize and disclose during the trial, all of which is subject to a mandatory notification under CIPA Section 5.
Special Counsel Jack Smith has advocated for a level of secrecy regarding CIPA issues, even asking the court to keep the 'number of categories of classified information' the government sought to remove from discovery confidential. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, however, rejected that request in favor of public access. denied that request in favor of public access.
While those more basic access issues — enshrined in and confined to CIPA Section 4 — were more or less decided earlier this year in Smith’s favor, the parties are now in a motions dispute about the disclosure deadlines contained in a separate section of the law.
The main issue concerns what classified information the defense can actually use and disclose during the trial, which is subject to a mandatory notice requirement under CIPA Section 5.
In early April, Cannon set a May 9 deadline for those disclosures, also instructing the defendants to disclose potential expert witnesses they intend to call during trial and the subject matter of their expertise.
On May 1, one of Trump’s co-defendants, his personal valet Waltine “Walt” Nauta, asked the judge for more time on both points.
More Law&Crime coverage: The Trump Docket: Trump tells Cannon that Bill Clinton ‘may still possess’ classified info while demanding Mar-a-Lago case dismissal
According to the defense, the government has been unnecessarily trying to speed up the case and push the defense into a quick trial, despite the absence of statutory support for such speed.
“The Special Counsel’s Office has incessantly sought deadlines in this matter that belay the readiness of the case,” the filing reads. “Thus, in November, the Special Counsel’s Office requested that this Court set a ‘near-term date’ by when the Defendants would be required to submit notice pursuant to CIPA § 5(a), despite acknowledging that so-doing would likely require repeated disclosures. And in their January expert disclosure, the Special Counsel’s Office asked this Court to require the Defendants to submit their own expert notices a mere two weeks later, despite no such requirement.”
A trial date in the case has yet to be scheduled. Under CIPA, a defendant must provide the relevant notices “within thirty days prior to trial.” Under the federal rule governing expert witnesses and evidence, the court has wide discretion to issue deadlines that ensure each side provides notice “sufficiently before trial to provide a fair opportunity” for the opposing party to “meet” such evidence.
The defense also argues that the government did not properly organize specific supposedly secret documents found at Mar-a-Lago. These documents are important for the defense to disclose.
The filing says that the Special Counsel’s Office has promised to help the defense accurately create a list that connects the alleged documents with their classification markings, but this will take time. Until this is done, the defense cannot be sure which documents from the classified discovery were found in the Storage Room boxes and where they were located in the boxes. Therefore, the defense cannot effectively identify the classified information it expects to disclose at trial.
The defense argues that at this stage, delaying the upcoming notice deadline will not affect when the trial starts.
The defense also states that everyone has been working towards this goal.
The defense filing continues by saying that it is clear that the parties and the Court have been methodically preparing for trial over the past few months.
The motion requests the court to cancel its previous order setting the May 9 deadline. In the event that the government claims that the requested indexing is not their responsibility or not relevant to the deadlines, the defense wants a hearing specifically for these issues.
Read the motion in full here.