MIAMI — Donald Trump’s arraignment took only 45 minutes on Tuesday in Miami federal court, where the former president sat silently the entire time, but it’s likely to be more than a year before his historic classified documents case goes to trial — even possibly beyond the November 2024 presidential election.
Trump, 77, who pleaded not guilty through his lawyers, is entitled to a “speedy” trial within 70 days of being formally charged with deliberately withholding national security records from the U.S. government. But speed won’t be the operative word to describe the path forward to his trial, legal experts said, regardless of the Southern District of Florida’s reputation for having a “rocket docket” in which judges typically move criminal cases quickly.
“The Trump documents case isn’t going to trial anytime soon and probably won’t be ready for trial before spring 2024,” said Miami attorney Joseph DeMaria, who once worked in the Justice Department’s organized crime task force in South Florida “But even then, if the judge grants any defense motions before trial, the government would appeal, taking up even more time. Then you’re looking at the summer of 2024 with the presidential election around the corner. It could easily be delayed until 2025.”
The trial date, and its location — Miami or West Palm Beach — could be a crucial factor for Trump, the front-runner in a crowded field of candidates for the GOP nomination for president.
For starters, the former president’s defense team is expected to challenge the indictment based on selective prosecution of Trump and not other politicians who also possessed classified records; file motions to suppress government evidence and witness testimony; and argue that the trial be held in West Palm Beach.
That’s near where the crime of violating the Espionage Act, obstructing justice and lying to FBI agents allegedly unfolded at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach. When Justice Department prosecutors under special counsel Jack Smith filed the indictment last Thursday, they checked off the West Palm Beach division as the site of the case — though a Miami federal grand jury returned the charges against Trump and former presidential aide Walt Nauta.
On top of all that, Trump’s case is fundamentally about the unlawful retention of government defense documents — exactly 31 counts deal with that offense in the 37-count indictment — so both sides will have to go through security clearances, and a legal custodian will probably be appointed to handle the sensitive materials through trial.
Then, lastly, there’s Trump’s state trial in New York City that is scheduled for spring 2024 with charges of falsifying business records while paying hush money to a porn star to stop her from going public about their alleged affair when he was running for president in 2016. That case would likely go to trial first, before the federal trial in South Florida.
Another critical issue hanging over the Trump documents case is the federal judge to whom it was randomly assigned in the West Palm Beach division of the Southern District of Florida.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — who had been widely reported as the judge who would oversee Trump’s arraignment and bond hearing, a task ultimately handled instead by Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman — was nominated to the federal bench by the former president and is a relative rookie in terms of her experience.
Cannon, who joined the court system as a judge just days after Trump lost the November 2020 election, is actually based in the Fort Pierce section, north of West Palm Beach. Cannon, a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office who was known for her appellate and writing skills, drew widespread criticism for her handling of the former president’s civil case challenging the FBI’s seizure of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago last summer.
At Trump’s request, Cannon appointed an independent special master to review more than 100 classified materials discovered during the Aug. 8, 2022, search of Trump’s Palm Beach residence — even though she found that the Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents acted in good faith in carrying out the search. An appellate court, including other Trump-nominated judges, found her reasoning flawed for appointing the special master, concluded she lacked the authority to do so, and issued a scathing ruling overturning her favorable decisions for the former president.
Several legal experts interviewed by the Miami Herald said there may be no legal reason to disqualify Cannon from staying on the Trump case. But they questioned whether Cannon, with little trial experience as a judge and certainly not cases involving national security matters, is prepared to handle the challenge and keep an open mind.
“Of course, Judge Cannon can recuse herself without any explanation but if she does not, her refusal to do so is not appealable,” said longtime Miami defense attorney Mark Schnapp, a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office. “This, of course, is not a usual case, but it is not easy for the government (prosecutors) to get her out of it at this point.”
The chief federal judge in the Southern District of Florida, Cecilia Altonaga, whose Miami courtroom was used for Trump’s arraignment, could reassign the documents case to another federal judge. But that would be unusual, Schnapp and other lawyers said.
If Cannon were to step aside, the Trump case would be randomly assigned again to one of the other three federal judges in the West Palm Beach division: Robin Rosenberg, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, Donald Middlebrooks, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, or Kenneth Marra, who was nominated by President George W. Bush.
Cannon won’t be the only judge in the spotlight. Bruce Reinhart, a magistrate judge in the West Palm Beach division, will be handling pretrial motions and other matters for Cannon. Reinhart drew the wrath of Trump’s supporters when it was discovered in the former president’s civil challenge that the magistrate authorized the FBI’s search warrant after finding probable cause of a crime being committed at Mar-a-Lago. Reinhart reportedly received threats to his life.
