Judge Aileen Cannon sets trial date for Trump in Mar-a-Lago classified documents case

Judge Aileen Cannon Friday set a May 20, 2024, trial date for former President Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

The controversial Trump-appointed jurist slapped down Trump’s demand that she suspend the trial until after the 2024 presidential election.

But Cannon pushed back on special counsel Jack Smith’s statment that the case could start before the end of the year.

“The Court rejects (Trump’s) request to withhold setting of a schedule now ... and does not see a sufficient basis on this record to postpone entry of a scheduling order,” Cannon wrote in a seven-page order.

Cannon said the Trump case is “complex” and will require a lengthy schedule of pretrial motions and possibly litigation over the handling of dozens of classified documents that are prime pieces of evidence in the case.

She handed down a detailed schedule of 24 hearings starting next week and stretching up to the May trial, which will take place in Fort Pierce, Fla., a Trump-friendly slice of the Atlantic coast north of West Palm Beach.

Cannon barely even mentioned Trump’s argument that it was unfair to put him on trial while he is running to return to the White House.

Trump’s campaign praised Cannon’s decision, which it called a “setback” for Smith even though it signals the trial will take place before the general election.

The date would come toward the tail end of the GOP primary race when about half the states will have already voted.

In the 2016 race, Trump wrapped up the nomination in early May.

If the schedule holds, Trump would either be convicted or acquitted a couple of months before the traditional Labor Day deadline for prosecutors to take actions that could affect an election coming up in November.

Trump already faces a March 2024 trial in the Manhattan district attorney’s probe related to the Stormy Daniels hush money case.

And he has been hit with a target letter by Smith in the prosecutor’s investigation into the Jan. 6 riot. A trial date for that could conceivably be set before March.

Cannon, 39, was roundly criticized for several pro-Trump rulings after his defense team asked her to block prosecutors from moving forward quickly after the FBI recovered more than 100 classified documents in a court-ordered search of Mar-a-Lago.

Trump pleaded not guilty last month to a 37-count federal indictment charging him with mishandling classified documents and defying a subpoena demanding their return.

He took hundreds of classified documents with him when he left the White House in January 2021 and stashed them at his Mar-a-Lago waterfront resort home. Trump’s loyal bodyman, Walt Nauta, is also facing charges of helping Trump hide the documents from prosecutors.