WASHINGTON – A federal judge in Florida set a trial date of May 20, 2024, in the classified documents case against Donald Trump, rejecting the Justice Department’s bid to try the case in December and the former US president’s request for a delay until after the 2024 election.

US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Friday set the date following a closely watched pre-trial hearing on Tuesday.

While prosecutors will not be able to try the case in 2023, the judge’s move is a significant setback for Trump, who had asked her to set no trial date as he navigates various trials, pending criminal probes and his campaign.

The trial in Florida is one of several legal obligations piling up on his schedule going into the 2024 election cycle.

These include cases involving his business, allegations of defamation and hush-money payments to an adult-film star.

Trump is also the target of federal and state criminal probes related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

Judge Cannon began her order by rebuffing his request to delay setting a firm schedule, writing that she found it “necessary” to keep the rest of the case on track. She said his arguments in favour of delay rooted in the demands of his 2024 campaign were “unnecessary” to her decision.

But she wrote that the government’s December proposal was “atypically accelerated and inconsistent with ensuring a fair trial”, given the amount of evidence that the defence had to review and complications related to the use of classified material.

She considered the case as “complex” over the government’s objection, a legal designation that gives her more flexibility to stretch out the timeline. 

The trial will take place in the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, where Judge Cannon usually presides. 

A spokesman for Trump did not immediately return a request for comment. A spokesman for Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office declined to comment. 

The trial date falls after the completion of nearly all the 2024 primaries, but before an official Republican presidential nominee is named at the convention next July. If Trump wins enough of those primaries, he could be the presumptive Republican presidential nominee when his trial begins.

Mr Smith’s office and the defence teams for Trump and his co-defendant Waltine “Walt” Nauta had all agreed that Judge Cannon’s original plan to hold the trial in August was far too fast. But they sparred over what the judge should order instead.

Judge Cannon’s comments and questions during the hearing had hinted at her interest in a spring or early summer timeline. She had asked one of Trump’s lawyers how “firm” a March 25, 2024, trial date was in the state criminal case in New York against Trump involving the alleged hush-money payments. 

The former president could be on trial in New York for at least eight weeks before going to trial on the federal case. Manhattan state prosecutors have not said how long that trial will take, but a criminal trial of Trump’s companies lasted at least seven weeks.

Prosecutors argued that starting the documents trial on Dec 11 would give the parties enough time to resolve issues related to the use of sensitive national security information and pre-trial challenges from Trump and Nauta, who is the former president’s personal aide.

The prosecutors maintained that the basic theory of the case was straightforward: Trump unlawfully held on to classified materials after leaving office, and then he and Nauta conspired to obstruct the government’s efforts to get the materials back.

Trump’s lawyers argued that the government’s timeline was unrealistic. During the hearing on Tuesday, they said a December trial failed to account not only for the numerous possible legal challenges they might pursue, but also the realities of Trump’s status as the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination and his crowded litigation schedule.

Trump lawyers asked Judge Cannon to postpone setting any trial date, and to wait to set deadlines for any defence motions until December. They confirmed to the judge that they did not believe a fair trial could take place until after the 2024 election, given the amount of publicity and intense political divisions involved.

The judge signalled her scepticism about delaying the trial for Trump’s political case, urging the lawyers to focus their arguments on the volume of evidence and the time they would need to review it, the complexity of issues related to the classified data involved and the extent of any pre-trial motions they wanted to pursue.

But she also questioned the government’s insistence that all sides could be ready for trial by the end of the year, asking prosecutors for examples of past cases involving classified information that unfolded on such a “compressed” schedule.

Mr Smith’s team told the judge they had already turned over most of the unclassified evidence in the case – more than 1.1 million pages of documents and, according to Trump’s lawyers, more than 1,000 days’ worth of surveillance footage. Mr Jay Bratt, a lead prosecutor, said only a smaller subset of that evidence was directly relevant to the government’s case against Trump and Nauta. Defence lawyers countered that they had a duty to review all of it.

The government had tried to swiftly secure the judge’s approval of an order laying out terms for safeguarding classified material so they could start turning that over as well, but Judge Cannon chastised them for filing a proposal without giving the defence more than a weekend to try to reach an agreement.

She directed prosecutors to make another attempt at meeting Trump and Nauta’s lawyers before coming back to her with a proposed order to consider. BLOOMBERG