Too many people have forgotten about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of Trump. SCOTUS and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon did everything they could including making effed up ‘law’ to protect Trump from prosecution and by golly it was just enough to get him over the finish line in November, 2024. Still, the Special Counsel law is required to file a report when they complete an investigation. Smith, knowing if Trump won that both the DC and Florida cases was shut down was ready to complete said report. Sadly, we haven’t gotten all the details we should from Part 1 (DC) and NONE from Part 2 which covered the Florida Classified Documents case. Now, an attempt is bein made to get the 11th Circuit to speed up consideration of an appeal to overturn Judge Cannon’s order burying Part 2 of Smith’s work.
You can read the details of what’s going on in this article from Law and Crime. Admittedly it’s a dense read and if you’re not a lawyer or reasonably fluent in legalese a bit tough to follow. It jumps around a bit. Still, this is something that should have been resolved (with the release of the Florida report) long ago. Hell, the actual case could have and should have been tried (and Trump convicted) in early 2024! Anyway, federal judges have an inflated sense of their importance and get their rocks off by taking their sweet-assed time issuing rulings. Appellate judges are even worse. Still, given how (relatively) quickly they slapped down Cannon (twice!) back in the early stages of the Florida case one would have thought by now they’d have done so again. Specifically by overturning her order that Part 2 of Smith’s report be buried. But it’s been crickets so here we are.
Last year groups filed to get Smith’s report released and Cannon did what she always does when it come to Trump and protected him. (Instead of Loose Cannon maybe we should call her Coverup Cannon?) Let’s go back. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia filed (in Feb. 2025!) to have Cannon release Smith’s Florida report. Cannon of course refused and in the meantime Trump’s DOJ asked that all copies of the report be destroyed. The legality of THAT is another issue for another time. For now what matters is that late last year Cannon issued two orders. She flatly denied the Knight Institute’s request but (not like she had a choice) gave them or any other ‘former or current Party to this action’ leave to ‘intervene’, ‘if warranted’ before the deadline.
The other order issued Feb. 23 of this year gave Trump much of what he wanted – it ordered that neither this or any subsequent administration could release the report but stopped short of granting DOJ’s request to destroy it. That same day she denied yet another motion from Knight without comment. The Knight institute has asked the 11th Circuit for Mandamus Relief and that seemed like it might move things along. Then things got weird as in more complicated:
At this stage in the overarching controversy, there are various motions in various associated cases, though not all are competing. Specifically, there are two 11th Circuit cases: in one case, the public advocacy groups are the petitioners and the government is the respondent; in the other case, the parties are exactly reversed.
On March 5, the groups asked the 11th Circuit to consolidate the disparate appeals “because they arise from the same underlying proceeding” in the name of “judicial economy” and the parties’ interests and because they “present the same core legal questions.”
It looked like some energy as in moving the Knight Institute’s appeal forward was happening but in deciding to consolidate their appeal with DOJ’s the whole thing is stalled again. Since March, it’s back to crickets from the 11th Circuit. About the only thing that’s happened with the case is it’s slowed down to a crawl. If that:
“In the nearly eight weeks since, no further filings have been made in either appeal,” the latest motion reads. “Under [an] Eleventh Circuit Rule…the filing of the motion to consolidate after Appellants filed their opening briefs in [one case] automatically postponed the due date for Appellees’ response briefs ‘until the court rules on such motion.'”
In other words, the motion to consolidate slowed down the schedule in the older case, resetting several upcoming deadlines.
This is ridiculous. The 11th Circuit proved years ago when Cannon was out there in legal la-la land they were willing to slap her down fast and hard. They’ve got lifetime appointments and Trump can threaten all he wants but he can’t do jack to them. Maybe they are afraid he’ll doxx them and send MAGAs to their homes. They are after all based in Georgia (Atlanta) so I suppose they might just be wishing all this would fade away. Fortunately the Knight Institute (and others) aren’t willing to let this go. More importantly they have run out of patience and even deference to the ‘august power and majesty’ of appellate judges who consider themselves impervious to the needs of the public. So the issue is being pressed:
“The grounds the Court credited in granting expedition in January 2026 apply with equal or greater force now,” the motion goes on. “The need for expedition does not diminish merely because a procedural prerequisite—consolidation—remains to be resolved. To the contrary: it is the absence of a ruling on consolidation that is now standing in the way of the expedited disposition this Court already ordered.”
The groups further argue that a lack of “prompt adjudication” in the case “undermines the benefit of public scrutiny and may have the same result as complete suppression.” The motion says the “extraordinary significance to the public of the record being suppressed here” supports an expedited schedule.
That’s a polite way of saying: ‘You said in January it was time to start expediting this case. We agreed to wrap our appeal and the DOJ’s together to make things EASIER for you and now you’re sitting on the whole thing. As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied and there’s been enough delay so how bout you set a schedule for motions so we can have a hearing within the next couple of months?‘ I for one think that’s a quite reasonable thing to do. It’s long past time for those appellate judges at the 11th Circuit to get off their goddam high horses and address this matter.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
