Trump's trial over classified documents set to be heard from May 2024

A US court on Friday announced the trial date of former President Donald Trump’s case of mishandling classified documents. The case will be heard from May 20 next year.

Trump’s lawyers had resisted setting a date but said any trial should take place after the November 2024 US presidential election, in which he is a front-runner for the Republican nomination.

“No one disagrees that Defendants need adequate time to review and evaluate it on their own accord,” said Cannon, a Trump appointee who was randomly assigned to the high-stakes legal battle.

A spokesperson for Trump said that the trial schedule “allows President Trump and his legal team to continue fighting” against the criminal case.

Friday’s ruling came from US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who sits in Fort Pierce, Florida.

The trial will be held at a federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, a city about 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of Miami in a part of Florida.

On June 8, the former president was indicted on charges of unlawfully handling national security documents when he left office and lying to officials who tried to recover them. He has pleaded not guilty.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the judge, in choosing a May start date, appeared to be trying to “split the difference” between the requests of the prosecutors and the defense attorneys.

Apart from this, Trump is set to go on trial in Manhattan for his involvement in falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star.

He said on Tuesday he had received a letter saying he is a target of a grand jury investigation into efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat.

With inputs from agencies