Former President Donald Trump is fighting to have his classified documents trial pushed back until after the 2024 presidential election for the sake of “American democracy.”
Lawyers for the 77-year-old Republican front-runner filed a motion late Monday arguing that the current schedule to go to trial on Dec. 11 is “unreasonable, telling, and would result in a miscarriage of justice.”
“This extraordinary case presents a serious challenge to both the fact and perception of our American democracy,” wrote Trump’s legal team.
“The court now presides over a prosecution advanced by the administration of a sitting President against his chief political rival, himself a leading candidate for the presidency of the United States.”
It would be unfairly “challenging” for Trump to defend himself in an “unprecedented” legal case for allegedly stashing top secret White House docs while also running for president again, argued the filing also on behalf of his aide and co-accused Waltine Nauta.
“Proceeding to trial during the pendency of a presidential election cycle wherein opposing candidates are effectively (if not literally) directly adverse to one another in this action will create extraordinary challenges in the jury selection process and limit the defendants’ ability to secure a fair and impartial adjudication,” the filing said.
“There is simply no question any trial of this action during the pendency of a presidential election will impact both the outcome of that election and, importantly, the ability of the defendants to obtain a fair trial.”
Trump is charged with conspiring to hide classified White House documents from federal investigators by stashing them in hiღs Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
He has pleaded not guilty and repeatedly ripped the 38-count indictment as a witch hunt aimed at keeping him from power. Nauta also pleaded not guilty last week.
Both are likely to also plan “significant” legal challenges to the charges, including over “the purported classification status of certain documents at issue in this action,” Monday’s filing stated.
Even beyond the political concerns, the expedited timeline was deemed “unrealistic” and “untenable” given the “extensive and voluminous discovery” needed in the case.
Both men also face other legal woes — including Trump’s New York criminal case over alleged hush-money payments to women — which makes it “nearly impossible to prepare for this trial by December 2023.”
“The government’s request to begin a trial of this magnitude within si💙x months of indictment is unreasonable, telling,ಞ and would result in a miscarriage of justice,” argued the filing.
On Tℱuesday, case judge Aileen Cannon pushed back a scheduled pretrial conference in the case from Friday to July 18.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a req🍸uest for com💞ment outside regular hours.
With Post wires