Trump's lawyers to appear in Florida court in classified documents case

Donald Trump's lawyers are due in court in Florida on Tuesday for a hearing in which a federal judge will begin to consider how to hold a trial of the former US president on charges of mishandling classified documents without publicly exposing top secret information. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, was charged last month with unlawfully retaining national defense documents after he left office in 2021 and conspiring to obstruct government efforts to retrieve them. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by US Attorney General Merrick Garland last year.

Tuesday's hearing in federal court in the city of Fort Pierce, scheduled for 2 pm EST (1800 GMT), will be overseen by US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump during his presidency and is expected to preside over the remainder of the case.

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Among the logistical issues Trump's lawyers and prosecutors are expected to discuss are deadlines for prosecutors to turn over classified documents that may be used as evidence and the timing for when Trump's lawyers must notify the government whether he intends to use classified documents to defend himself against the charges. A 1980 US law governs how classified material is handled in criminal cases, giving judges the authority to evaluate sensitive information before it is publicly revealed in court.

Trump has claimed that a US law regarding the preservation of presidential records allowed him to keep even sensitive government documents after he left office following his 2020 election loss to Biden. He also has claimed that as president he declassified the documents before taking them. That assertion is undercut by a taped conversation cited in the indictment, which said Trump showed a secret document to several people and said that he "could have declassified it" as president but did not.

The charges against Trump include violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalizes unauthorized possession of defense information. Trump, 77, would face a sentence of up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Cannon initially scheduled the trial to start on Aug. 14 - a date that both the defense and prosecution opposed because they said they needed more time to prepare. Smith's team has recommended a Dec. 11 start date.

The defense has sought an indefinite delay, citing among other factors the rigors of Trump's campaign schedule. After an FBI raid last year at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach that turned up classified documents central to the criminal case, Cannon ruled in the former president's favor in a challenge he brought to the Justice Department's investigation brought months before criminal charges were filed. Cannon's ruling was later overturned on appeal.