Trump and his former co-defendants seek delay on Jack Smith report hearing

Delay plagued the ill-fated classified documents prosecution against Donald Trump. Even after Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon killed the case, delay continues to stalk its afterlife.

The latest postponement request comes from the president and his former co-defendants as they seek to push back an appellate hearing over the fate of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the matter.

While Smith’s report on Trump’s other federal prosecution in the election interference case has already been released, the volume of documents has been cooped up. That’s due to orders from Cannon, who dismissed the case pretrial in the summer of 2024 and has kept Smith’s documents report a secret since then, aided by yet more delays and shifting legal rationales.

Two outside groups, American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute, have been pressing for the report’s release on appeal. Oral arguments in their effort kept being put off for unclear reasons, including being scheduled for a date as far out as January 2027. But then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit recently notified the parties that it would hear arguments on Nov. 2.

That prompted Monday’s request from Trump, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who asked the court to put it back on for January or later. On top of various scheduling conflicts among the lawyers, they cited something that doesn’t come up in the average case: the president’s schedule.

“Given President Trump’s extensive commitments, including travel and other obligations in advance of the November 3, 2026, federal midterm elections, counsel will not have sufficient opportunity to meaningfully confer with her client while preparing for oral argument on the currently scheduled November 2, 2026, argument date,” the motion for continuance said.

It noted that such motions “are generally disfavored” under court rules. “Here, however, the circumstances are not limited to a routine scheduling conflict with another proceeding,” they said. Among other things, they said Trump and his counsel “reasonably planned for the necessary pre-argument consultations and preparations to occur after the November 3, 2026, midterm elections, and still well in advance of the January 18, 2027, argument date.”

The court does not appear to have acted on the motion as of this writing. The groups pressing for the report’s release oppose further delay.

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