Judge Cannon punts on decision to delay Trump's classified documents trial further

Judge Aileen Cannon has put off a decision for now on whether to delay former President Donald Trump's classified documents case, The Messenger reported on Wednesday.

Trump is seeking a delay in the trial, which was already pushed back to May 2024 earlier this year — later than requested by special counsel Jack Smith. An attorney representing the former president, Todd Blanche, argued that it is "unfair" for the former president to be facing three trials in three months — the 2020 election interference case and the New York business fraud cases are set to be heard in March.

At the end of the 90-minute hearing on the matter, Cannon said she would consider all the arguments and make a decision later.

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Prosecutors argue that Trump illegally hoarded boxes of highly classified national defense information in unsecured areas of his Mar-a-Lago country club in South Florida, and have charged his body man Walt Nauta and property manager Carlos de Oliveira with helping him.

Trump has insisted he had a right to take the documents and that he "mentally" declassified them without telling anyone.

Cannon, herself an appointee of Trump, has frequently come under fire for a series of decisions in the case that onlookers have suggested appear to be calculated to tilt the process in Trump's favor.