Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump and the federal prosecutors who charged him with illegally holding on to extremely delicate nationwide protection paperwork had a primary listening to on Tuesday with the choose overseeing the case to debate the scheduling of the trial and the best way to deal with the labeled materials on the coronary heart of the prosecution.

The listening to, in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., is the primary time that Judge Aileen M. Cannon has presided over a continuing within the case, elements of which could possibly be closed to the general public. Mr. Trump was indicted final month by the workplace of the particular counsel, Jack Smith, on costs of illegally retaining 31 particular person labeled paperwork and of conspiring with one among his private aides, Walt Nauta, to impede the federal government’s repeated efforts to reclaim them.

The listening to received underway hours after Mr. Trump disclosed that he had received a so-called target letter from Mr. Smith in a separate felony investigation into his efforts to stay in workplace after his 2020 election loss and the following assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The goal letter was a sign that Mr. Trump may face indictment in that inquiry as properly.

The protection and prosecution within the paperwork case have clashed sharply over when the trial ought to start. The authorities has requested Judge Cannon to start out the trial in December, however attorneys for Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta responded with a request to postpone it till all “substantive motions” had been offered and resolved.

The timing of the trial could possibly be massively consequential, particularly whether it is pushed after the 2024 election. If Mr. Trump, the present front-runner for the Republican nomination, had been to win, he may attempt to pardon himself after taking workplace or may have his lawyer basic merely dismiss the matter solely.

In an order issued on Monday, Judge Cannon instructed each side that they need to be ready to debate the trial schedule in court docket on Tuesday. Her choice might be an early check of how she handles the high-stakes prosecution of the person who appointed her to the bench in 2020. While Judge Cannon was randomly assigned to the case, she has attracted a lot consideration with rulings that had been favorable to Mr. Trump within the opening stage of the investigation.

Shortly after the indictment was returned, Judge Cannon scheduled the trial to start in August — although that seemed to be a professional forma date guided by a want to satisfy necessities for a speedy trial. In a filing last week, attorneys for Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta requested the choose to delay the trial indefinitely, claiming that the invention proof within the case was expansive, that the arguments over labeled supplies can be onerous and that Mr. Trump, as a presidential candidate, had a grueling schedule of journey and marketing campaign occasions.

Prosecutors responded by saying a lot of the proof had already been handed over to the protection and that many “indicted defendants have demanding jobs that require a considerable amount of their time and energy, or a significant amount of travel.”

The arguments over the labeled supplies had been set to start in earnest on Tuesday in a course of guided by a legislation generally known as the Classified Information Procedures Act. The objective of the legislation is to stability two competing pursuits in circumstances that contain labeled materials: guaranteeing that felony defendants have enough entry to the fabric to guard their due course of rights and that nationwide safety isn’t compromised.

On Monday, prosecutors requested Judge Cannon to concern an order that will require Mr. Trump, Mr. Nauta and their attorneys to signal a proper memorandum of understanding declaring that they’d not disclose any labeled materials they obtained or had been permitted to overview as a part of the invention course of. Protective orders like these are widespread in circumstances involving labeled materials.