Special counsel blasts Trump's bid to delay documents trial until 2024 election

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Federal prosecutors said Trump should not be allowed to use “baseless” legal arguments to delay his trial.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/13/special-counsel-trump-trial-date-00106268

By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN 07/13/2023 05:30 PM EDT

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team sharply rebuked Donald Trump’s bid to postpone until after the 2024 election his criminal trial for allegedly hoarding classified documents, characterizing the former president’s call for delay as unfounded and one of his key legal arguments as “borderline frivolous.”

In an 11-page filing signed by assistant special counsel David Harbach, prosecutors said federal law and the Constitution require the trial to be put on as soon as practical — not with an “open-ended” date built around Trump’s political calendar.

“There is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion, and the Defendants provide none,” Harbach writes.

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Smith’s team rejected the notion that issues raised by Trump are particularly complex or unprecedented, citing cases related to former President Richard Nixon and cases that have upheld the power of special counsels to conduct federal investigations. And Trump’s contention that the Presidential Records Act — a federal recordkeeping law with no criminal component — provides him a defense in this case is “borderline frivolous,” Harbach wrote.