July 14 (UPI) — Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith opposed former President Donald Trump’s request to delay the trial over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Ahead of a press conference scheduled Tuesday for lawyers in the case, the Justice Department responded to Trump’s efforts to indefinitely delay the tentative date of Aug. 14 saying the request “borders on the frivolous.”
“There is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion, and the defendants provide none,” wrote assistant special counsel David Harbach.
Trump’s team wrote on Monday that beginning a trial “of this magnitude within six months of indictment is unreasonable, telling, and would result in a miscarriage of justice.”
The special counsel’s team countered that while Trump’s lawyers were provided 800,000 pages of evidence, only 4,500 were “key” documents in the case.
Smith had previously called for the trial to be delayed until December noting the sensitive nature of the classified materials in the case would require special considerations.
However, Trump’s team said that a December trial would make it even more difficult to seat an impartial jury as his 2024 presidential campaign would be ramping up.
Smith’s team also rejected that claim in Thursday’s filing.
“Our jury system relies on the court’s authority to craft a thorough and effective jury selection process, and on prospective jurors’ ability and willingness to decide cases based on the evidence presented to them, guided by legal instructions from the Court,” the special counsel said.
“To be sure, the government readily acknowledges that jury selection here may merit additional protocols (such as a questionnaire) and may be more time-consuming than in other cases, but those are reasons to start the process sooner rather than later.”
Trump and aide Walt Nauta have pleaded not guilty to numerous charges of illegally keeping national defense records after leaving office and conspiring to hide them. Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 counts alleging that he willfully retained classified documents containing national defense information, conspired to obstruct justice and made false statements.
