Behind closed doors, Mr. Trump and his team had fought a pitched battle to block the special counsel from obtaining that information. But the chief judge of the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia, Beryl A. Howell, ruled that the so-called crime-fraud exception applied, allowing a grand jury in the district to review it.

Those decisions, however, were only about what could be shown to a grand jury. Mr. Trump’s defense team can bring new motions to suppress that evidence and keep the information from reaching the trial jury, and Judge Cannon will not be bound by Judge Howell’s rulings.

Decisions Judge Cannon makes in establishing the pretrial and trial calendar could also be critical. Mr. Trump has long pursued a strategy of trying to run out the clock on legal matters, and if he can push the documents trial beyond the 2024 election, there is a chance that a Republican — whether that is Mr. Trump himself, or another nominee — will become president and end the case.

Because the case involves classified evidence — 31 of the counts against Mr. Trump center on violations of the Espionage Act in the unauthorized retention of 31 secret and top secret documents — it is likely that any judge would spend significant time in handling pretrial hearings over whether to allow substitutions that do not contain classified information.

Samuel Buell, a white-collar criminal law professor at Duke University and former lead prosecutor on the Enron task force, said that there could be “a lot of misdirections and delays and things that may play well in the MAGA media space but I don’t see legally how even a judge inclined to make mischief is going to prevent this from going to trial.”