One attribute that both Aileen Cannon and Donald Trump share is consistency. *Judge* Cannon has unfailingly made every single decision in the classified documents case in which Trump is a defendant with his best interests in mind. Every.Single.One. This is not judicial impartiality. This is not dealing at arms length. This is servitude to the man who put her on the bench — and who might put her on the Supreme Court if she plays her cards right and continues to toady to Trump.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon will be removed from overseeing the trial in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Espionage Act case against Donald Trump, predicts a top constitutional scholar who is calling her rejection of an urgent request from federal prosecutors to place additional restrictions on the ex-president “wildly lawless,” and a “smoking gun.”
Last week Donald Trump, his campaign, and almost immediately his supporters, falsely claimed President Joe Biden had tried to assassinate the ex-president in 2022 when FBI agents executed a legal and lawful search warrant on Mar-a-Lago. Trump had been storing well over 1000 White House items he had taken, including hundreds of classified documents, at his Florida residence and resort. Among those were some of the nation’s top nuclear secrets.
In a fundraising email one week ago Trump’s campaign claimed, “Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.” Trump was out of state when the FBI entered Mar-a-Lago. Federal agents had conferred with Secret Service, and had planned for the search warrant to be executed when the ex-president was not at the club.
It was noted by many outlets when this happened that in any kind of a normal world, for a presidential candidate to announce to the world that his opponent, the sitting president of the United States had targeted both the DOJ and the FBI to assassinate him, would have made world headlines and created a governmental crisis. But not this time. Not when the nominee is Donald Trump because he lives in a childish fantasy world, where boilerplate language in a search warrant was elevated to an assassination attempt by his right-wing media shills — and then broadcasted by Trump not only on his social media platform but on all right-wing media outlets. First they create a crisis, then they report on it as breaking news.
“Cannon’s wildly lawless rejection of Special Counsel Smith’s clearly correct request for a gag order against fake and dangerous claims that the FBI was ordered to assassinate him is good news,” declared University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, Laurence Tribe, a professor of law and top constitutional scholar who wrote a major textbook on the U.S. Constitution.
It’s the smoking gun that will finally lead to her removal from the stolen secrets case,” Professor Tribe added.
Not responding to the substance of the Special Counsel’s request to order the ex-president to not make any statements that could be dangerous to law enforcement, Judge Cannon instead rejected the motion on the grounds Smith’s attorneys should have conferred with Trump’s attorneys before making the request, as ABC News reports.
This is procedural nitpicking and it’s going to be perceived as such. Yes, it’s a plausible argument to make that a meet and confer should have taken place. But it’s an equally plausible argument, considering Trump’s repeated behavior, that speed in getting a gag order was of paramount concern. Cannon completely overlooked the substantive argument and found any loophole that she could to, once again, stonewall Jack Smith and serve Donald Trump. That is her modus operandi. We have abundant proof of that. This is just the latest stone on the pile.
“The Government moves to modify defendant Donald J. Trump’s conditions of release, to make clear that he may not make statements that pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case,” federal prosecutors wrote in the filing that Judge Cannon rejected.
While the Special Counsel’s prosecutors did confer with Trump’s attorney, Judge Cannon claimed their efforts were “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy,” according to ABC News. “Trump’s lawyers argued that the special counsel violated Local Rule 88.9, which says both parties must ‘meet and confer’ before flings motions so the court and the parties’ time is used efficiently. In a filing Monday, Trump’s lawyers asked Cannon to strike the special counsel’s request and impose sanctions on any prosecutors involved in filing their motion.”
The story about sanctions broke last last night. Trump’s lawyers are seeking, still and always, to characterize Jack Smith’s prudent and prophylactic measures, meant to protect law enforcement, as somehow playing dirty pool. No. He’s trying to safeguard people involved in this case from Trump’s out of control recklessness. If Trump could govern himself accordingly, and keep his mouth shut and stop disparaging people publicly, as he’s been directed to do over and over, these motions would not be necessary.
“As we also tried to explain earlier, our judgment was that the situation your client has created necessitated a prompt request for relief that could not wait the weekend to file,” Special Counsel prosecutor David Harbach told Trump’s lawyers via email, according to ABC News. “We understand your position and represented to the court that you do not believe the government has engaged in adequate conferral here.”
“Adequate conferral” is a term of art that is subject to interpretation. What is adequate in one circumstance may not be adequate in another. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric has proven to be dangerous and has already resulted in the injuries and deaths of innocent people. That’s why there is a case filed against him for precisely that reason. Trump threw gasoline on a fire last week with the nonsense about an assassination attempt. All that Jack Smith is trying to do is damage control. But Judge Cannon is playing Marquis de Queensbury rules and she has concluded that the requisite politesse from Jack Smith has not been forthcoming. She’s talking about “professional courtesy” when Jack Smith is talking about physical safety.
Simply, this is an issue of form and substance. The substance of Jack Smith’s motion was compelling. That’s what has been ignored, because the *judge* has chosen to quibble over some picayune matter of form. This is not right. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and Cannon is ignoring the spirit of the law and justifying her egregious actions with whatever flimsy excuse she can find. And that is clear and obvious to anybody watching it happen.
I hope Professor Tribe is correct that this is the last straw. God knows that pile of straw is awfully high. I hope this is the one that finally breaks the back of the poor camel — us and our credulity — that has been carrying it.
Equal Justice Under Law…lolololololol. Prove it assholes.
It gets worse. tRump’s lawyers blew the govt off on Friday, then at the same time when saying “It’s a Holiday weekend!” then suggested meeting on Monday – which was THE holiday!!! Shameless cretins!
For whatever the circumstances and allegiances: Certain people who want to see you win, will definitely help you win. But at a cost to them – personal and or professional. Don’t forget that, canon fodder.
Welp, if the fed. soc. members on the s.c. play their usual hand, they will grant the prez the power of assassination of one’s political rivals. That will take Von Shitshispants out of the ballgame permanently should President Biden use this power judiciously and wisely. I’m afraid I cannot think of a single reason why President Biden should not assassinate Von Shitshispants especially when given the go-ahead by the s.c.
All I can say is way to go Von Shitshispants-you might as well have pulled the trigger yourself. It would be the very first thing done right with regard to Von Shits. The Very First.
Spike, I often think you go too far with your rather shocking suggestions about how to fix this tRump mess. But you really do make a great point here, that if SCOTUS rules that tRump has absolute immunity, Biden should definitely make the first move. Biden being a gentleman probably would not actually have Donald obliterated. But if SCOTUS rules that presidents (plural, because they CANNOT just say tRump ALONE is immune) are immune from prosecution, what’s to stop President Biden from doing any one of a number of things to stop Donald in his tracks? Have him committed to a mental institution for the criminally insane (which in my humble opinion is where he belongs), for instance. I can’t think of any other really good options, but it wouldn’t be up to me since SCOTUS will definitely NOT grant me immunity from prosecution. But you probably have many ideas of your own! IF SCOTUS rules that tRump (and by extension, ALL POTUSs, past, present and future), has absolute immunity, they may well come to REGRET that decision. Let’s pray real hard that the right wing members of the Supreme Court will suddenly listen to what Lincoln called their “better angels” and deny the Orange Turd his ridiculous request for absolute immunity until the nation collapses or Donald slips into that special hell for wannabe dictators who spend a decade trying to tear a country and all its people apart, whichever comes first
(By the way, after seeing tRump attorney Todd Blanche’s closing argument in the hush money/election interference case, I’m of the opinion that the defense team is so sick of tRump, they WANT to see him found guilty!)