Trump should be tried in January, prosecutors tell judge

Proposed trial date in election-interference case comes on same day as Trump’s not guilty plea on additional Mar-a-Lago charges.

Donald Trump rolls along the greens at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday. Picture: AFP

Special counsel Jack Smith has recommended that former president Donald Trump stand trial in Washington next January 2, two weeks before the first votes in the Republican presidential primary will be cast in Iowa’s January 15 caucuses.

The proposed trial date for the Washington, DC, case alleging Mr Trump conspired to overturn his 2020 election loss reflects the challenges he faces in trying to juggle courtroom battles with campaign events as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination.

Mr Trump’s lawyers are likely to propose a later date to Federal District Court judge Tanya Chutkan, who will hold a hearing on Friday (Saturday AEST) on rules about disclosing evidence in the case.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump wrote: “Only an out of touch lunatic would ask for such a date, ONE DAY into the New Year, and maximum Election Interference with IOWA!”

The GOP frontrunner faces mounting legal peril. On Thursday, he pleaded not guilty to additional charges related to his retention of classified documents after he left the White House, the second time in a week he has formally denied federal prosecutors’ allegations against him.

Mr Trump was not present during a brief hearing before federal magistrate judge Shaniek Mills Maynard in Fort Pierce, Florida. His lawyer, Todd Blanche, entered his not guilty plea to an indictment filed against him last month alleging he and his aides sought to have surveillance footage from his Mar-a-Lago resort deleted so it could not be turned over to a grand jury.

The three additional charges – one count wilful retention of national-defence information and two counts of obstruction – add to a case Mr Smith brought in June charging Mr Trump with improperly retaining classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them. Mr Trump now faces 40 counts on seven different charges in the documents case, which is scheduled to go to trial next May.

Also facing charges in the Florida case are Mr Trump’s personal aide, Walt Nauta, and Carlos de Oliveira, a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago. Mr Nauta also pleaded not guilty on Thursday to the superseding indictment. Mr De Oliveira did not enter a plea because he had not been able to secure a local lawyer in time. He has found one who said he would be set to appear in court on his behalf on Tuesday.

Just a week earlier, Mr Trump pleaded not guilty to separate federal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election to remain in power, appearing in a federal courtroom in Washington just blocks from the US Capitol that was stormed by his supporters on January 6, 2021.

In the documents case, the superseding indictment says Mr Trump had a 24-minute phone call with Mr de Oliveira on June 23, 2022, the day after a lawyer for the Trump Organisation received a draft grand-jury subpoena requiring the production of Mar-a-Lago security-camera footage.

A few days later, Mr de Oliveira confronted an unnamed Mar-a-Lago staffer, identified in the indictment as the director of information technology at the resort, and told him that “the boss” wanted the footage deleted and, according to the indictment, asked “What are we going to do?”

The IT director told Mr de Oliveira that he did not know how to delete the server and that he did not think he had the right to do that, according to the indictment, which does not say any of the footage was actually deleted.

Surveillance footage is at the heart of the Mar-a-Lago case, with prosecutors saying it shows Mr Nauta moving dozens of boxes in the days before Justice Department investigators visited the property in June last year to retrieve records.

Mr Trump’s lawyers have sought to delay both federal cases and have sparred with prosecutors in each over how much of the government’s evidence he should be able to have access to and potentially publicly expose. In the documents case, lawyers are arguing over where and how Mr Trump and his team can view and discuss classified information.

The Wall Street Journal