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Delays caused by Donald Trump have forced prosecutors to ask for a three-week extension in his classified documents case, a new court filing has claimed.
Trump's lawyers asked three times for a time delay in filing their list of expert witnesses. Prosecutors now say that, when they finally received the list, it was incomplete, which has forced them to seek a three-week extension in filing their own expert witness list.
Trump is facing 40 federal charges in Judge Aileen Cannon's court over his alleged handling of sensitive materials seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving the White House in January 2021. He is also accused of obstructing efforts by federal authorities to retrieve them. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Newsweek contacted Trump's attorney and Cannon's office for comment on Monday.
"The written notice Trump's counsel has provided the Government is incomplete, and the Government cannot fully supplement its expert notice until Trump files his more fulsome actual Rule 16 disclosures," prosecutors stated in a filing to Cannon on Friday.
Under rule 16 of federal disclosure law, both sides must submit their list of experts and the topics they will talk about. Both sides are expected to call expert witnesses to talk about the significance of the presidential records found at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump was supposed to file his expert witness list by July 8, and prosecutors were to file the day after.
However, prosecutors now say that, with an incomplete list from Trump, they will wait for a correct filing from his legal team and have asked Cannon to allow them to file their own expert witness list by July 30. They add that Trump's legal team has no objection to their delay request. This was submitted by prosecuting attorneys Jay I. Bratt and David V. Harbach.
On the 11th, Cannon granted Trump a third extension on filing his expert witness list, despite the objections of special counsel Jack Smith, the chief prosecutor in the case.
Cannon wrote that "good cause exists for the extension request and that no prejudice to the Special Counsel or to the proceeding will result from granting the relief sought in the motion."
While the judge granted Trump's request for a new filing date on July 8, she added that he had only sought an extension on the day he was due to file.
"Moving forward, any requests for extension or enlargement must be filed sufficiently in advance of the deadline at issue," Cannon wrote.
Smith has repeatedly accused Trump of using filing delays to frustrate the trial as much as possible.
If elected president, Trump has a number of options to kill the case. These include pardoning himself or appointing a favorable attorney general to drop the charges.
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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