Former President Donald Trump's criminal trial in Florida likely will be postponed from its current start date in May, Politico reported.
Trump has been accused of mishandling classified documents after leaving office.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon this month declined, for now, to postpone the trial start date of May 20, but pushed back several pre-trial deadlines in the case.
Experts on criminal prosecutions related to classified information, though, say a postponement is almost inevitable due to the pace of the pre-trial process, Politico reported.
"The signals are of a court that is proceeding slowly and methodically through the process," Brandon Van Grack, a former national security prosecutor, told Politico. "In order to have a trial by May, the court would just need to push the parties on a tighter deadline."
Former CIA attorney Brian Greer told Politico: "There's pretty much no chance they could go to trial on May 20 with the current schedule."
Politico also reported that David Aaron, a former Justice Department national security prosecutor, said a May 20 trial is unlikely "unless a lot of discipline is imposed."
With much of the government's evidence being classified, a 1980 law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) stipulates how that evidence should be handled.
Most federal judges outside the Washington D.C., area rarely encounter CIPA cases. Trump's trial is believed to be the first CIPA-related one for Cannon.
Cannon recently told prosecutors that a faster schedule in the case was unrealistic due to the complications involved.
"I'm just having a hard time seeing how realistically this work can be accomplished in this compressed period of time, given the realities that we're facing," Cannon said.
Democrats have been pushing for Trump's four criminal trails — others concerning the 2020 election results, the 2020 results in Georgia, and alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels — to begin soon because they would like Trump to be found guilty of a crime or crimes before the 2024 presidential election.
"The Department of Justice is trying to do everything in its power ahead of trial to move as expeditiously as possible," Van Grack said. "And the court is just reluctant to or resistant to any efforts to expedite the process."
Trump currently is the clear front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, and recent polls show him with a lead over Biden, who's seeking reelection.
The classified documents trial is expected to last for weeks or longer. If the May 20 start date holds, the trial could run into the Republican convention, set for July 15-18 in Milwaukee.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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