Special Counsel Jack Smith’s all-out push for a May trial date for President Trump on Mar-a-Lago charges appears to have a fresh obstacle — none other than the doughty decider, Judge Aileen Cannon. 

Mr. Smith’s need for speed is surfacing as a defining feature of his prosecutions of the 45th president for a conspiracy to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election and for illicitly retaining classified documents. He is pushing the pace in South Florida even as the January 6 case before Judge Tanya Chutkan is suspended pending appeal. 

The special counsel tells Judge Cannon, who has handed him a series of pre-trial defeats, that her own scheduling is inadequate to prepare for the May 20 start she proposes — for now. At issue is when to begin the process of generating and mailing the jury questionnaires that will be used to find the 12 people to decide Mr. Trump’s fate. 

Judge Cannon wants to discuss the questionnaire at a scheduling conference on March 1. Mr. Smith, though, writes that beginning the process after that date “will likely not provide the Court with sufficient time prior to trial.” He ventures that previous cases in the District of Columbia “suggest that the Clerk’s Office requires at least ten weeks’ time” to get the questionnaires to mailboxes. 

By Mr. Smith’s reckoning, the questionnaires would have to be approved by March 11 for a May 20 trial. Given Judge Cannon’s leisurely pace thus far, that appears unlikely. She has cited the “unusually high volume of unclassified and classified” documents that the case involves and cited the need for Mr. Trump to have “adequate time to prepare for trial and to assist in his defense.”

While Judge Cannon has assumed a posture of deliberation that stands in contrast to Judge Chutkan’s punctiliousness, she has thus far resisted Mr. Trump’s motions for a formal delay in the proceedings. Mr. Smith’s underscoring calendric realities could be an effort to bring the issue to a head and force Judge Cannon to commit herself to May or else go on the record with an extension.

Judge Cannon’s jurisdiction is not the only one in which the special counsel appears to be adopting an aggressive posture with respect to timing. In that suspended  January 6 case, he has signaled his intent to keep meeting deadlines that are no longer in force, a decision that has drawn a sharp rebuke from Mr. Trump’s team, who call his relentlessness “unconstitutional” in the context of a stay. 

During that pause, Mr. Smith is pushing other courts, too, to move quickly. He has requested expedited hearings on Mr. Trump’s claim of presidential immunity from both the United States Circuit Court for the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court. The latter ask, he concedes, is “extraordinary,” considering the circuit riders have not yet ruled. Mr. Trump opposes that motion. 

It appears that the special counsel plans to engage with Judge Cannon on the same terms, though his relations with the judge have been frosty since she ordered the appointment of a special master to chaperone his investigation, a decision that was overturned on appeal. Should she plan to run out the clock, then at least he can seek to force her to do so explicitly. 

Mr. Smith likely reckons that he has nothing to lose by such an approach. Should Her Honor stick to the original trial schedule, he gets his prompt trial. Should she delay it — possibly until after the election — the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis, could decide to attempt to move her trial up to that potentially vacant slot. A prosecutorial game of musical chairs could be just getting started.