Judge pauses Trump classified documents case

Former President Donald Trump scored a legal win on Saturday.

It was U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon who gave Trump the win, according to Fox News, by placing a pause on the classified documents case that special counsel Jack Smith has brought against Trump.

This is the case in which Smith is trying to claim that Trump illegally mishandled classified documents when he left office and then obstructed the government's efforts to get those documents back.

Trump has maintained his innocence and has insisted that Smith is merely running election interference on behalf of Democrats.

What's going on?

Cannon's decision is related to the U.S. Supreme Court's recent immunity ruling. In case you missed it, the justices ruled that U.S. presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts that the president carried out while in office.

This ruling appears as though it could be problematic for some of the Democrat prosecutors - including Smith - who have brought cases against Trump. This is because Trump is now going to claim that he is protected by presidential immunity and it will be up to the prosecutors to prove otherwise.

This is exactly what is happening in the classified documents case.

Within days of the Supreme Court's ruling, Trump and his legal team filed a motion with the court in which they invoked the justices' decision.

The legal team asked Judge Cannon to place a pause on the case so that it can be reconsidered in light of the Supreme Court's ruling.

Cannon hands Trump another win

Over the weekend, Cannon responded to Trump's motion by postponing some of the deadlines in the case.

"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," the New York Times reports.

The outlet adds, "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."

What this means is that it is looking less and less likely that the trial phase of the case will take place before the upcoming presidential election.

This, of course, is bad news for Smith and the Democrats, who have made it clear that they want Trump declared guilty before the election in order to make the task of defeating Trump in the election easier.