On June 28, former US President Donald Trump spoke at a rally held at Greenbrier Farm in Chesapeake, Virginia.
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The federal judge overseeing the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump has delayed several deadlines after Trump’s legal team requested a review of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
Trump’s legal team filed a court filing on Friday arguing that this week’s U.S. High Court ruling means he has blanket immunity from prosecution for his “official actions.” As part of an effort to dismiss the case, the former president’s lawyers asked Judge Erin Cannon to rule on whether the conduct at issue was official.
Trump’s legal team has also requested arguments on the immunity issue before Cannon between now and early September, effectively delaying aspects of the case by at least two months.
Cannon’s order issued Saturday did not give a date for any discussions on immunity, but did allow for a brief pause related to two deadlines for Trump’s lawyers and one for prosecutors. The order gives federal prosecutors until July 18 to respond to Trump’s request for an extension. Trump’s legal team will respond to prosecutors on July 21.
Trump argued that his removal of classified documents from the White House and then moving them to his Mar-a-Lago vacation home in Florida constituted an official act and that the Supreme Court ruling should translate into charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith dropping .
In Friday’s court filing, Trump’s lawyers also pointed to Judge Clarence Thomas’s unanimous opinion in the immunity decision that questioned Smith’s appointment and authority in the classified documents case. Trump’s team also sought to have the case dismissed on this basis, arguing that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
Smith said the Supreme Court’s ruling does not apply to the classified documents case because the documents were taken from Trump when he left office and the former president obstructed FBI investigators from Sea Lake after he was no longer president. The estate retrieved the documents.
Cannon has not yet set a trial date in the case. The Trump appointee has been criticized for indefinitely delaying the trial’s start date after announcing she needed more time to review a pretrial motion from the former president’s legal team to dismiss the case.
