by Ewan Palmer at Newsweek
The judge overseeing Donald Trump‘s federal classified-documents case has been accused of failing to enforce a routine deadline, amid claims the former president is hoping to delay the trial until after November’s presidential election.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, has rejected Special Counsel Jack Smith‘s request to force the former president to reveal if he plans on using a defense that he was merely relying on advice of his lawyers during the trial. Newsweek contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Saturday for comment via email.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 charges relating to allegations he illegally retained top-secret and classified material after he left office in January 2021, then obstructed the federal attempt to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, home. The former president has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly said that the charges are part of a political witch hunt that seeks to derail him as frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Cannon has previously faced calls to recuse herself from the case in which she was randomly selected to oversee because she has already made a number of decisions that could be seen to have benefited the Republican.…
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