Judge Delays Some Deadlines in Trump Classified Documents Case

A federal judge on Saturday postponed a few deadlines in former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case to allow prosecutors time to respond to his request for a broader pause in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling this week on executive immunity.

On Friday, lawyers for Mr. Trump asked Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the case, for permission to file additional papers to bolster their immunity contention. They argue that the Supreme Court’s decision in a separate case granting Mr. Trump wide protections for official acts as president applies to the documents proceeding.

As part of their effort, the lawyers asked Judge Cannon to put the documents case almost entirely on hold as she grappled with the question of immunity.

In a brief order on Saturday, Judge Cannon told prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, that they had until July 18 to respond to Mr. Trump’s request for a broad delay. In the meantime, she pushed back two approaching deadlines in the case related to filings about expert witnesses the two sides plan to introduce at trial and to the defense’s obligation to provide discovery information to the government.

The postponement of the two deadlines was likely to cause only minor delays to the documents case, which has already been slowed to a crawl by Judge Cannon’s previous decisions. The judge has not yet set a date for Mr. Trump and his two co-defendants to go on trial. Because she is still mulling a host of unresolved legal issues, it is exceedingly unlikely that the case will go in front of a jury before the election in November.

Still, like many orders from Judge Cannon, her decision to push back the deadlines had an unusual aspect.