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Because there is so much Trump legal news on the Stormy front, this one almost snuck in under the (doppler) radar. In fact, it's almost like it was designed to sneak in under the radar. In any event, Judge Aileen Cannon announced yesterday that she has decided to indefinitely postpone Donald Trump's classified documents trial.
It was exceedingly unlikely that the original trial date would hold, as the original trial date was May 20. That's less than 2 weeks away, of course, and there are many pre-trial matters that have not been decided. Of course, a big part of the reason they haven't been decided is because Cannon has been dragging her feet. That said, even if she was a model of efficiency and competence, Trump is rather busy elsewhere right now, so that would presumably have killed the May 20 start date anyhow.
Special Counsel Jack Smith has proposed that the new start date be July 8, but Cannon also issued an order yesterday that lays out a timeline for addressing the many, many unresolved pre-trial questions, and that timeline goes through July 10. She also implied that she's not going to calendar the trial until everything is addressed. So, not only will the trial not start on July 8, there probably won't even be a trial date by July 8.
At this point, whether it's incompetence, or being in the bag for Trump, or both, you have to assume Cannon is not going to let this thing get to trial before November. Maybe she'll surprise us, but we doubt it. That leaves Scott McAfee in Georgia, who's given no indication of what timeline he will follow (Fulton DA Fani Willis wants an August trial date), and Tanya Chutkan, who is waiting to learn if presidents are, or are not, above the law.
Our guess, keeping in mind that we are not lawyers, is that the Chutkan trial is going to happen before the election. The Supreme Court is not going to give Trump blanket immunity, and Chutkan is a no-nonsense judge, and seems likely to decide that if Trump really wanted to be out campaigning in July or August or September, that's unfortunate for him, and he should not have gotten himself in the position of being on trial in the summer. We shall see how prescient our crystal ball is, here. (Z)