After initially proposing to schedule a pre-trial hearing for Donald Trump’s classified documents criminal case next week, Judge Aileen Cannon set it for this Friday, April 12, under the request of co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.
Cannon, the federal judge overseeing the Florida case, had initially proposed April 19 for the hearing on pre-trial motions by the two defendants, but Nauta’s and De Oliveira’s attorneys were not available. The hearing is now set to start at 2 p.m. local time on Friday.
Kyle Cheney, senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, described the initial suggestion to hold the hearing on April 19 an “oddity” on Cannon’s part.
“Cannon was free this Friday (4/12) for a Trump-related hearing but instead proposed having it a week later (4/19) without first checking if the attorneys were free,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “It was Nauta and De Oliveira who actually asked to move up the date to this week.”
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Responding to a request by the two defendants’ lawyers to move the hearing to another date because of “personal conflicts,” the Special Counsel’s Office said that the counsel was “available anytime that suits the Court, including this week,” as shown by documents shared by Cheney on social media.
Both Nauta and De Oliveira were caught on surveillance cameras in June 2022 moving boxes containing classified documents around Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s luxurious resort in Palm Beach. The two are also accused of allegedly directing another Trump employee to “delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.”
The former president faces 40 felony counts related to his alleged mishandling of top-secret documents after leaving the White House. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing, with his lawyers recently trying to get the case dismissed on the basis that the Presidential Records Act would have allowed him to turn classified documents into personal records and keep them at Mar-a-Lago.
Last week, Cannon dismissed the lawyers’ request. The case is now expected to go to court, though the Florida judge has not yet decided on a date. If found guilty, the former president could face a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Newsweek contacted Trump’s legal team for comment by email on Tuesday morning.
Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump in the final months of his presidency, has previously been accused of trying to postpone the trial to his advantage, as the former president could halt many of the cases against him to a grind should he win the November election. Early on in the case, Cannon decided that the case had such a high profile that proceedings should be made publicly available—a move that contributed to delays in the starting of the proceedings.
Special counsel prosecutors have suggested that the case goes to trial in July, but those chances appear slim at the moment.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.