Special counsel fights Trump effort to ‘upend the entire schedule’ of Mar-a-Lago case

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team aggressively pushed back against a proposal by former President Trump to shift court deadlines in his upcoming trial for mishandling classified records at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s proposed delay of various deadlines for procedures for addressing classified evidence “threatens to upend the entire schedule established by the Court and that amounts to a motion to continue the May 20, 2024 trial date,” prosecutors wrote in the late Wednesday filing.

Smith’s team suggests a short deadline extension on the latest matter before the court but argues the rest of the deadlines should remain in place.

The bulk of the filing deals with the arcane processes for handling classified information at trial.

At issue are deadlines set by Judge Aileen Cannon for how to deal with various motions expected under the Classified Information Procedures Act, which lays out ground rules for determining how to deal with classified evidence throughout the case.

The existing schedule does compress some activity in the months shortly before the trial, but prosecutors say Trump’s request would unnecessarily delay motions regarding discovery for three months.

Unlike in other cases, the government must only turn over evidence that is relevant and helpful, and Smith’s team argued that Trump’s attorneys already have enough information to stake out their legal positions.

“The defendants already have more than sufficient discovery to provide the Court with a description of the type of information they consider relevant and helpful. The defendants’ motion can and should be denied on this ground alone,” prosecutors wrote.

Trump’s team last week sought to revise the dates and complained about prosecutors’ handling of the evidence, saying they would file motions that will “require the Court to anticipate and apply defense arguments in response to a request by the Special Counsel’s Office to ‘delete’ some of the evidence in this case.”

Prosecutors fought that characterization and also previewed their plans for addressing some classified evidence in the case, saying they would seek authorization “to provide classified information to the defense in the form of substitutions and redacted documents rather than withhold it entirely.’

“The nature of the material the Government will propose substituting and the limited redactions it will propose are unlikely to require finely detailed defense theories in order for the Court to determine the helpfulness of the material or the adequacy of a substitution,” prosecutors added.