Ex-intelligence official ‘stumped’ over Aileen Cannon's Trump trial delays: 'mystifying'

A former Naval Intelligence official professed himself “stumped” Friday that a federal judge would entertain what he calls former President Donald Trump’s delay tactic in his Mar-a-Lago criminal case.

“As a person more than passingly familiar with classified documents,” writes George Fedoroff in his Washington Post op-ed, “ I find the continuing discussion of the content of the classified documents Mr. Trump took, kept and hid at Mar-a-Lago mystifying.”

Fedoroff references a Post article from January that reports sparring between Trump’s legal team and special counsel Jack Smith’s over redactions in the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago during an FBI search in 2022.

“Not surprising for a case that is, at its heart, about national defense secrets,” the Washington Post report states.

Fedoroff — whose analysis arrives days after Smith argued in a closed hearing with federal Judge Aileen Cannon that some classified information should be withheld — disagrees with the Post’s description.

“As confirmed by the searches conducted by the FBI, a significant number of the presidential documents taken by Mr. Trump were clearly marked as classified,” he writes.

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“I fail to see why the issue of defense lawyers having access to actually read these documents or the other stash of documents taken from the White House should impede a swift resolution of this case.”

Fedoroff called on Cannon to speed up court proceedings, arguing that it’s not a question of what documents were found, but where they were.

According to the indictment, classified information was stored in a Mar-a-Lago ballroom, bathroom, office and shower, among other locations.

“The content of the documents is not at issue,” Fedoroff argues. “Taking and illegally possessing and hiding these documents once the former president’s possession of them was determined is the issue."

“The legal processing of this case needs to be accelerated, and the defense team’s request to read the content of the documents should be seen for what it is, as a delaying tactic irrelevant to the actual case.”