FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump is hearing arguments Friday on a long-shot defense effort to get the indictment thrown out based on the claim that the prosecutor who brought the charges was illegally appointed.

The arguments over the legality of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment kick off a three-day hearing that is set to continue next week and bring further delays to a criminal case that had been scheduled for trial last month but has been snarled by a pileup of unresolved legal disputes. The motion questioning Smith’s selection and funding by the Justice Department is one of multiple challenges to the indictment the defense has raised, so far unsuccessfully, in the year since the charges were brought.

Even as Smith’s team looks to press forward on a prosecution seen by many legal experts as the most straightforward and clear-cut of the four prosecutions against Trump, Friday’s arguments before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon won’t involve discussion of the allegations against the former president. They’ll center instead on decades-old regulations governing the appointment of Justice Department special counsels like Smith, reflecting the judge’s continued willingness to entertain defense arguments that prosecutors say are meritless, contributing to the indefinite cancelation of a trial date.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, had exasperated prosecutors even before the June 2023 indictment by granting a Trump request to have an independent arbiter review the classified documents taken from Mar-a-Lago — an order that was overturned by a unanimous federal appeals panel.

Since then, she has been intensely scrutinized over her handling of the case, including for taking months to issue rulings and for scheduling hearings on legally specious claims — all of which have combined to make a trial before the November presidential election a virtual impossibility. She was rebuked in March by prosecutors after she asked both sides to formulate jury instructions and to respond to a premise of the case that Smith’s team called “fundamentally flawed.”

The New York Times, citing two anonymous sources, reported Thursday that two judges — including the chief federal judge in the southern district of Florida — urged Cannon to step aside from the case after she was assigned to it.

The hearing is unfolding just weeks after Trump was convicted in a separate state case in New York of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actor who has said she had sex with him. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is set to issue a landmark opinion on whether Trump is immune from prosecution for acts he took in office or he can be be prosecuted by Smith’s team on charges that he schemed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

At issue in Friday’s hearing is a Trump team claim that Smith was illegally appointed in November 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland because he was not first approved by Congress and because the special counsel office that he was assigned to lead was not also created by Congress.

Smith’s team has said Garland was fully empowered as the head of the Justice Department to make the appointment and to delegate prosecutorial decisions to him. Prosecutors also note that courts have upheld prior appointments of special counsels, including Robert Mueller by Trump’s Justice Department.

On the agenda for next week are arguments over a limited gag order that prosecutors have requested to bar Trump from comments they fear could endanger the safety of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials involved in the case.

The restrictions were sought after Trump falsely claimed the agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents in August 2022 were prepared to kill him even though he was citing boilerplate language from standard FBI policy about use of force during the execution of search warrants. The FBI had intentionally selected a day for the search when it knew Trump and his family would be out of town.

Trump’s lawyers have said any speech restrictions would infringe on his free speech rights. Cannon initially rejected the request on technical grounds, saying prosecutors had not sufficiently conferred with defense lawyers before seeking the gag restrictions. But prosecutors subsequently renewed the request.

Another issue set to be discussed next week is a defense request to exclude from the case evidence seized by the FBI during the Mar-a-Lago search, and to dismiss the indictment because of evidence it includes that came from former members of Trump’s defense team.

Though attorney-client privilege protects defense lawyers from being forced to testify about their confidential conversations with clients, prosecutors can get around that shield if they can establish that the lawyer’s legal services are being used to further a crime.

That’s what happened last year in the classified documents investigation, with prosecutors in their indictment repeatedly citing details of conversations Trump had with M. Evan Corcoran, an attorney who represented the former president during the investigation and who was forced by a judge to appear before the grand jury investigating Trump .

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Tucker reported from Washington.

Florida ranked 30th overall in the 2024 Kids Count Data Profile, a survey of wellbeing by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, with the biggest changes in math and reading scores and child deaths. 

Four categories — economic wellbeing, education, health, and family and community — factor into the ranking, including data on teen birth rates, children living in poverty, single-parent families, and children whose parents lack secure employment. 

The number of eighth grade students not proficient in math in Florida increased from 69% to 77% between 2019 and 2022, a time when the COVID pandemic closed schools and forced distance learning across the country.

In that same period nationally, a similar trend occurred, with a math proficiency increase from 67% to 74%. 

At the same time, Florida fourth graders fared better than the national average in reading proficiency. Fourth graders not proficient in reading dropped by 1 percentage point, from 62% to 61%, in Florida, while nationally their number increased from 66% to 68%. 

States varied on how they delivered instruction during the pandemic; in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis ended classroom instruction between March 2020 and the beginning of the next school year.

The Sunshine State’s best category was education, ranking 5th. The other three categories ranked in the bottom half — 42nd for economic wellbeing, 31st for health, and 30th for family and community. 

Florida high school students who did not graduate on time improved by 3%, with 13% not graduating on time in 2019 compared to 10% in 2021.

Karen Woodall, executive director of the Florida People’s Advocacy Center, said a high education ranking seems inconsistent with the lower rankings in the remaining categories. 

“We rank toward the bottom in those categories, and so it’s kind of interesting to see that we’ve made improvements in education,” Woodall said. “Because usually if the child is struggling with housing and food and poverty and all that, it’s not conducive to them having high scores in education.”

A failure to invest in people-focused infrastructure contributes to Florida’s bottom-half ranking, according to Woodall. 

“We’re not a poor state, we’re not a revenue-poor state,” Woodall said. “Mississippi is a revenue poor state, Florida is not, we just don’t spend the money on our human infrastructure and invest in that capital. When we make strides when there’s some money put in, we’re coming from so far behind that it’s just a drop in the bucket.”

Woodall pointed to an unwillingness to expand Medicaid, attempts to limit access to KidCare coverage, and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ refusal to apply for federal funds to provide summer lunches to children. 

Child deaths

Child and teen deaths in Florida increased between 2019 and 2022, rising from 25 per 100,000 to 30, the same as the national rate. The report found that firearms were the leading cause of death for teenagers and motor vehicle accidents were the leading cause for children. 

Florida’s overall ranking improved one spot, from 31st in the 2023 data profile. New Hampshire ranked the best overall, while New Mexico was ranked the worst. Other southeastern states, including Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi, ranked worse than Florida. 

The nonpartisan Florida Policy Institute responded to the data with a call to maintain motivation in education. 

“With 61% of fourth graders who are not proficient readers and 77% of 8th graders who are not proficient in math, there is so much work to be done and a need for greater investment in education,” Norín Dollard, the Kids Count director at the institute, said in a news release. 

“The rankings in the other three areas of child well-being, economic (42nd), health (31st), as well as family and community (30th) highlight the fact we need continued attention on Florida’s children and communities,” Dollard said.

The Casey Foundation made recommendations for Florida, including increased investments in public schools and ensuring internet access, places to study, and access to intensive tutoring for students who fall behind. 

Woodall said Florida policy can be “consistently inconsistent with stated goals of improving the lives of our children and families.”

“A lot of times there will be an increase in some service but a contradictory move in an overall general policy. So, increasing funding for mental health but then passing policies that restrict what teachers can use to teach, that go after kids that are transgender, or kids that are LGBTQ. They’re just contradictory,” Woodall said. 

Florida “has never done a very good job of funding health and human services,” she added.

“If we looked back across all of their data books, we would see Florida ranking in the bottom every year on most indicators simply for what I said — we don’t invest in our human infrastructure, our children, our families; we spend money on big tax breaks and development.”

Since 2012 Florida has risen from 34th in education and 39th in health. In 2014, Florida ranked 45th in economic wellbeing and 35th in family and community.

President Joe Biden’s executive order protecting undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens sparked condemnations from Republicans and praise from Democrats in Florida and around the country.

“Biden’s mass amnesty plan will undoubtedly lead to a greater surge in migrant crime, cost taxpayers millions of dollars they cannot afford, overwhelm public services, and steal Social Security and Medicare benefits from American seniors to fund benefits for illegals — draining the programs Americans paid into their entire working lives,” Donald Trump said in a written statement.

“It’s wrong,” added Florida GOP U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, according to Reuters. “We like immigration. But it ought to be legal immigration. These are people who came here illegally, so they should not have a path to citizenship. There should be no amnesty.”

Meanwhile, Central Florida Democratic Congressman Darren Soto applauded the move.

“Thanks @POTUS Biden for your efforts to expand legal protections for immigrant spouses and kids of U.S. citizens and college educated Dreamers,” Soto wrote on X. “This will help preserve many Central Florida families and boost our local economy.”

Orlando House Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani also is supportive.

“Two of Florida’s largest economies are tourism and agriculture, both rely heavily on immigrant workers. If we do not pass common-sense policies, like work permits for folks who are already tax paying individuals, we are hurting our economy and our communities,” said Eskamani.

The announcement came days just after the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy announced in 2012 by then President Barack Obama that shielded “Dreamers” — undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children and have lived and attend school in America — from deportation. Former President Donald Trump attempted to kill DACA when he was president, but it survived a court challenge — although its future remains uncertain as the case continues to move through the federal courts.

In addition to shielding the undocumented spouses of individuals married to U.S. citizens if they have been in the country for at least 10 years, the order will allow Dreamers who have earned a degree at a U.S. university and have received an offer of employment to more quickly receive work visas instead of temporary work authorizations, as is now the case.

Gamechanger

With the status of DACA uncertain, particularly if Trump is re-elected this fall, the move could be a gamechanger for Dreamers.

“The main thing that affects me would be that process of going through an employment visa,” said Orlando resident Ahtziry Barrera, 26, a native of Hidalgo, Mexico, who came with her mother to the United States at age 4 and became a DACA recipient a year after the program was created.

“I have been offered jobs where I cannot take them because I’m not a resident,” she told the Phoenix this week. “Nor am I a U.S. citizen, and unfortunately because of that there is no pathway to that. One of the few pathways would be getting an employment visa and we’re waiting for more details, but you still have to go through the same lottery process and the same sponsorship from your employer.”

As Barrera notes, details of who might qualify under the new program have not been laid out. Work visas could be limited in number and apportioned according to job categories.

Approximately 530,000 individuals are on DACA right now, 21,000 of them in Florida. They must reapply every two years for deportation protection and work permits, with the filing fee recently increased by $60 to $555.

But there have been reports of lengthy processing delays, and Barrera is well aware of that.

“I submitted my application already in April and I’m still waiting,” she said. “I’ve seen some people get it within two weeks, others right to the month that you are waiting to receive it. And again, you are compromising, because if you don’t get it with your employer, you risk being fired because you can’t work without authorization.”

Biden’s announcement drew plaudits from Democrats and immigrant rights groups, a far cry from the reaction  after the president implemented executive actions to bar migrants who cross the Southern border from receiving asylum when the number of border encounters between ports of entry hit 2,500 per day. That move came after U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported that they have encountered more than 8 million people crossing the southwest border since 2021.

Mollifying nobody

Biden’s action seemed to mollify nobody, as Republicans criticized it as too little, too late while immigrant-rights groups said the move echoed the Trump administration’s actions on the border. A Monmouth University poll found that 40% of the public approved of the move, 27% were opposed, and 33% had no opinion.

Immigration ranks alongside inflation as top issues for voters, and Trump’s harder-line policies on immigration have been shown to be more popular in some surveys than Biden’s, and that includes among Latino voters.

In fact, an Equis poll released on Tuesday of 1,592 registered Latino voters in seven battleground states found 41% trust Trump on immigration, compared to 38% for Biden.

It’s been “disheartening” to observe the rhetoric and legislation targeting undocumented immigrants, Barrera said. A year ago, Florida lawmakers passed one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal immigration in the nation. Its provisions included requiring businesses to vet new employees’ legal status through the federal E-Verify program, which led to media reports that it was harming some Florida businesses.

“We saw it, right, with a bunch of the workforce,” Barrera said. “A lot of the construction sites were empty, so there’s that component of the economic contributions that we give. There’s a lot of agriculture and a lot of construction sites, right? Florida is being built by immigrants and, whether you have status or not, passing a law like this affects families. Whether one person [in the family] has status, they all fled the state because of the fear of the law.”

Over the years, there have been several congressional proposals to create a legal pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, but none of those efforts have come to fruition. While it’s been frustrating, Barrera said, she’s still grateful for what DACA has given her over the past decade-plus.

“It has already provided me with so many opportunities to not only live here but give back to my community, and to study and work here,” she said.