Loom­ing deci­sions set to shape Trump clas­si­fied doc­u­ments case

A pile of pend­ing deci­sions in the clas­si­fied doc­u­ments case against for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump in Flori­da is set to have an enor­mous impact on the future of the case and whether a tri­al fea­tur­ing the pre­sump­tive Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee will occur dur­ing crit­i­cal months of an elec­tion year.
Trump and spe­cial coun­sel Jack Smith, who has charged the for­mer pres­i­dent with will­ful­ly retain­ing nation­al defense infor­ma­tion, are await­ing a deci­sion by Judge Aileen Can­non on sev­er­al piv­otal mat­ters, includ­ing a tri­al start date and whether the charges against Trump should be dropped alto­geth­er.
Can­non has not at this stage answered per­haps the most burn­ing ques­tion, which is when the tri­al might begin, and she h …