Judge Partially Grants Trump’s Request for More Time to File Motions Over Evidence in DC Case

A federal judge on Tuesday granted Donald Trump's legal team extra time to file motions regarding evidence in the Washington, D.C. election-subversion criminal case against the former president.

In a four-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered that Trump's attorneys may file motions for subpoenas until Nov. 27, and motions seeking to compel prosecutors to produce evidence by Dec. 13. Previously, the deadline for those filings was scheduled for Nov. 9.

The types of motions covered by the order deal with discovery--the legal term for the exchange of records and information between parties prior to trial--rather than legal arguments.

The extension comes as only a partial victory for Trump, whose legal team in a motion last week had asked Chutkan for a Feb. 9, 2024 deadline for motions for subpoenas and to allow motions to compel on a rolling basis.

The former president's attorneys last week said that prosecutors had produced nearly 13 million pages of documents in the case, and they and needed more to complete their review.

Trump is charged with four federal felonies in the case alleging he obstructed the 2020 presidential election and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. His trial is scheduled to begin on March 4, the day before Super Tuesday when 14 states vote including California, Colorado, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

In her order Tuesday, Chutkan said the proposed February deadline is too close to the scheduled trial date in March but that she could allow a partial extension of about a month.

"That will still allow those motions to be briefed and decided, and any subpoenaed materials to be produced and reviewed before the scheduled trial," Chutkan wrote.

Tuesday's order marks the second time that Chutkan agreed to extend the deadlines for the two types of filings. In an early October order, Chutkan agreed to extend the original deadlines for the discovery motions from Oct. 9 to Nov. 9 at the request of Trump's attorneys.