U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon set a trial date for May 2024 in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, but legal experts believe Donald Trump's lawyers may be able to stall the proceeding until after the election.
The Department of Justice had hoped to start the trial by the end of this year, while the former president's lawyers had wanted to hold off until late next year – and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance said Trump may get what he wants.
"Trump's lawyers have said they think this trial will take several months to complete," Vance said. "That estimate is a little bit long. The government's estimate is more in the level of weeks, but finding an opening block of a week's period of time on a federal judge's calendar at the last minute just doesn't happen. That means that if the time comes where she has to reschedule, it'll be pushed down the road and likely won't take place before the election."
There are plenty of reasons a trial may be delayed – some more legitimate than others – but Trump status as the Republican presidential frontrunner complicates his status as a criminal defendant, she said.
"Legitimate reasons might look like a lawyer who gets sick or a witness who can't be available on a certain date, and those sorts of problems do come up in trial settings," Vance said.
"There can be pretrial motions that have to be litigated to an appellate court. That can slow down a schedule, too, in some situations, although fortunately the statute that governs the use of classified information, there's an expedited calendar built in for an appeal to the 11th Circuit, so less likely to be a problem, and then there are sort of manufactured delays. For instance, a defendant who tries to, late in the game, switch lawyers or who continues to object that the government hasn't given them enough time to review material, or in this case, perhaps a defendant who will say that, as the nominal presidential candidate of the Republican Party, he can't be blocked out of appearing at important campaign events."
"That's sort of a call, that's the one to look for," Vance added. "It would be up to Judge Cannon's discretion to decide whether she should and could give him delays that would accommodate him as candidate Trump rather than defendant Trump."
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