Donald Trump and his aide Walt Nauta asked a federal court in Florida to postpone the criminal trial in the Mar-a-Lago documents case and drop the current date, a filing by the former U.S. president's lawyers showed on Monday.

Prosecutors had already asked District Judge Aileen Cannon for a delay until Dec. 11, from an initial date of Aug. 14, so as to give both sides more time to prepare.

But Trump's lawyers said a December trial date would deny them reasonable time to prepare, and described the government's requested schedule as "unrealistic."

"The court should therefore withdraw the current order setting trial and postpone any consideration of a new trial date," the lawyers said, adding that a continuance was both necessary and appropriate.

Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, pleaded not guilty in federal court on June 13 in Miami to charges that he had unlawfully kept classified national security documents when he left office in 2021 and lied to officials who sought to recover them.

Nauta, his aide, pleaded not guilty last week in a Miami federal courthouse to charges that he had helped Trump hide top secret documents taken when he left the White House.

The U.S. Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment outside regular hours.

(Reporting by Bharat Govind Gautam in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)