Judge sets Aug. 14 start for Trump secret documents trial, but legal experts are skeptical

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said Tuesday that the federal criminal trial of former President Donald Trump will start "during the two-week period commencing Aug. 14, 2023, or as soon thereafter as the case may be called." Cannon said she plans to hold the trial on Trump's 37 felony counts at her home courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida.

The Justice Department is accusing Trump of willfully retaining national security secrets and conspiring to obstruct the government's attempts to get the documents back. Legal experts said the trial will almost certainly not begin in August, in part because it deals with classified evidence. Prosecutors, Trump's lawyers and the judge will have to negotiate how much classified material to release and show the jury, and it can also take months for Trump's lawyers, whoever they end up being, to get security clearances, as Cannon ordered.

"This case is not going to trial in August," former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams said on CNN. Cannon "sort of had to do that" to respect Trump's speedy-trial rights, "but it's not uncommon for judges to set that date and then push it forward." New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman added she thinks "the judge is very keen on not being seen as the person who is holding this up."

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Special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the investigation, said he wants a speedy trial, and Cannon suggested she agrees. "But it is not clear that the defense wants the case to proceed quickly," the Times reported. "Trump's strategy in legal matters has long been to delay them, and the federal case against him is unlikely to be an exception." If the trial lasts past the 2024 election, Trump has a shot at winning and pardoning himself or directing the attorney general to drop the case.

Trump's team is expected to file a flurry of pretrial motions, to get the case thrown out by claiming prosecutorial misconduct or unfair treatment and to suppress evidence, especially the notes by Trump's former lawyer Evan Corcoran. "Unless there have been communications that we do not know about and the government has streamlined the usual process and the defense has agreed to that process — this schedule is going to change," former Justice Department lawyer David Aaron told The Washington Post.

The quick prospective trial date "signals that the court is at least trying to do everything it can to move the case along and that it's important that the case proceed quickly," former federal prosecutor Brandon Van Grack told the Times. "Even though it's unlikely to hold, it's at least a positive signal — positive in the sense that all parties and the public should want this case to proceed as quickly as possible."