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Donald Trump's lawyers are expected to file at least ten separate motions in his classified documents case on Thursday after a judge refused to allow him to submit them as one large document.
Judge Aileen Cannon rejected a request by Trump's legal team that they submit a document up to 200 pages long that included motions on everything from the alleged illegality of a raid on Trump's Florida estate to their claim that the chief prosecutor was illegally appointed in the case.
Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, may be delaying the case further by insisting that each motion be submitted and studied individually.
She also increased the permitted length of Trump's motions—each one can now be 25 pages, excluding attachments, so the combined total will now be at least 250 pages.
"All pre-trial motions shall be filed on an individual basis to permit clear adjudication of the legal/factual issues presented and to facilitate record clarity and scheduling," she wrote on Tuesday in reply to a request by Trump's lawyers to submit one large set of motions.
"The Court hereby enlarges the page limit for individual pre-trial motions and responses to twenty-five double-spaced pages, exclusive of attachments," she wrote.
She also wrote that Trump's legal team must state with each motion whether a hearing is required. If Trump's lawyers insist on a hearing for each one, that would be at least ten additional hearings requested in the case.
She also rejected Trump's request that a censored version of some of the motions be released publicly.
Many of the documents in the case are sealed or censored because they contain discussion of highly classified documents found in Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Cannon ordered that all of Trump's motions be filed on or before Thursday, February 22.
Prosecutors in the case have repeatedly argued that Trump and his lawyers are trying to delay the trial until after the 2024 presidential election.
Trump is facing 40 federal charges over allegations he retained classified papers after leaving the White House in January 2021 and then obstructed efforts by the relevant authorities to have them returned.
In August 2022, Trump's Mar-a-Lago private members club was raided by federal agents who recovered several classified papers. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and strongly denies any wrongdoing. He is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race.
One of Trump's ten motions will contest the appointment of the chief prosecutor in the case, Special Counsel Jack Smith.
In a request filed to Cannon on February 20, Trump's lawyer sought permission to file "at least 10 pretrial motions concerning, for example, the appointment of Jack Smith, presidential immunity, the Presidential Records Act, selective and vindictive prosecution, the unconstitutional vagueness of 18 U.S.C. § 793(e), due process violations, prosecutorial misconduct, impermissible pre-indictment delay, the illegal raid at Mar-a-Lago, and improper violations of President Trump's attorney-client privilege."
The notice to Judge Cannon was filed by Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Christopher Kise.
Trump's lawyers also informed Cannon that Trump's co-accused, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, "plan to file additional pretrial motions in separate briefs."
On February 8, Smith complained to Cannon of a "relentless and misleading" ploy by Trump and his co-accused to delay the trial.
In a court filing, he said they "will stop at nothing to stall the adjudication of the charges against them by a fair and impartial jury of citizens."
In November, Smith complained to Cannon that Trump wanted to delay the case "at any cost."
If Trump is elected president, he has several options to end the case, including appointing a favorable attorney general to drop the prosecution.
He can also seek to pardon himself or ask the Supreme Court to delay the case until he is out of office.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more