“Spiking” a cannon or field gun (artillery, whether towed, self-propelled or mounted on a tank) is an age old practice. Originally, in the early times of black powder a cannon/gun was fired by touching a flame or burning cord to a little hole with a bit of black powder in it that would ignite the main charge. Boom. They were hugely heavy and hard to move, not to mention it took time to reload them. More so than a musket to give you an idea. Anyway, if a unit was about to be overwhelmed they didn’t want the enemy to capture their guns. In the same vein, an enemy might not be able to move them back to their own lines and were facing counter-attack. Either way, to prevent the enemy from using the guns a long nail or thin metal spike was hammered into that little hole, hence the term “spiking.” Once breach loading cannon/guns came along setting off explosive on either end would to the job, and in fact much better than the old days of spiking but the point was this:
Render the cannon/gun USELESS.
Bearing all that in mind let’s look at the past week, and what lies ahead. Trumpty Dumpty has been having a bad weekend. No question about it. No matter how much ketchup he can scrape from the walls to dump on his burnt steak, no matter how big and moist his slice of “beautiful chocolate cake” is and not even THREE scoops of ice cream can make him feel better. But for all that I can’t help but wonder if someone else down his way is having an equally bad weekend.
Federal Judge Aileen Cannon who will preside over Trump’s National Security Trial (Again- It’s NOT a “documents trial”, they are just evidence and the real issue is a massive breach to our National Security!) has been feeling pressure this summer. Earlier this week, this young and inexperienced federal judge was found to have just recently made really dumbass mistakes in a child exploitation and porn trial. There are several articles but I’ll link to this one from Forbes which isn’t exactly a bastion of liberal thinking and reporting.
Much has been written already about her ‘randomly” being assigned Trump’s case (I still say NO WAY it was random!), her so blatantly trying to derail investigation of Trump’s actions that led to the formal case over which she will now preside, and whether two brutal beat downs from an appellate court packed with conservatives and a slew of fellow Trump appointees had taught her anything. And yes, her qualifications to be on the federal bench have come up. Now, although overshadowed by the DC indictment and the upcoming Fulton County one judge Cannon made the news again. As the article I linked notes, she made a couple of big, stupid blunders. In a trial of someone accused of child porn and exploiting children! Look, she’s in an out of the way backwater handling mostly small-time cases that plead out. Literally a one-judge shop in a tiny courtroom in a tiny courthouse.
You can count the number of actual trials she’s presided over on one hand. And she clearly didn’t know WTF she was doing in the most recent one earlier this summer! There is simply no way she should be handling a case of the magnitude of Trump’s. But she is, and clearly has no intentions of stepping aside. I truly believe she’s got fellow Federalist Society pals on hand to guide her through how to help Trump but in ways that will hold up if prosecutors appeal her decisions. And to not be TOO obvious but hell, the wink wink nod nod has I’m certain been going on between her, Trump’s lawyers and maybe even way off the record with RWNJ media.
I want to backtrack for a minute but it’s necessary. I’ve written before about a huge change in how the FL trial is talked about even by non RWNJ journalists. ORDERS came down from the corporate masters and by god everyone has gotten the memo. Remember when all the talk was about Smith filing the case Smith was clearly building about what was seized during last year’s search of Mar A Lago was going to be narrowly focused, with clear cut issues and could easily be tried quickly? Maybe even before the primaries? A couple of weeks AFTER the indictment all of a sudden news coverage began to portray it as the most massively complicated case ever to be filed! And (cue crocodile tears) when Cannon set a May 2024 trial date the line was even that “early” was surprising, and (sob) they just couldn’t see how a trial could begin until election season was underway.
Cannon had to be giddy. Even the freaking regular media was giving her plenty of cover to protect her buddy Trump!
At the same time the same reporters and their pundits were dutifully reporting how oh so sad it was that while Smith was clearly well along in building a January 6 case against Trump that it was even MORE complicated than the “most complicated case (the FL) one they’d ever seen.” And each night woke up from fantastical wet-dreams about the ratings (and MONEY) from another Trump vs. Biden campaign! The point though is that all along it was assumed, and talked about ad nauseum that Smiths “one shot” at a Trump trial before the election was the FL case, and once judge Aileen Cannon was put in charge oh my! They just knew she’d be his (and theirs’) secret weapon. Someone literally named Cannon that would run out the clock on Trump’s behalf and give them the “dream” match up they wanted.
Which is why I say the gun/cannon that is about to get “spiked” is none other than judge Aileen “Loose” Cannon.
In DC there are any number of highly qualified, experienced jurists in the federal district court and they are all quite familiar with January 6 and handling cases involving not just rank & file insurrectionist rioters, but folks who organized them and were right there in the middle of the whole thing that day. Still, as I said the line of thinking was that the range of charges Smith could bring was so broad that it would be a sprawling case that could, even with no-nonsense judges take a couple of years to get to trial.
Oops.
Once again, Smith could have charged much more than what he did but kept things fairly tight. Only four charges. Better still, as I said the judges in DC know Trump, his lawyers and the tactics AND are familiar with relevant case law on various issues that will come up. As is the appellate court Trump’s lawyers will keep running to. Not that they haven’t already shown a willingness to move with speed, those appellate judges down south, TRUMP judges (most of them) moved quickly. I rather doubt they are going to want to be “outdone” so there’s that.
Finally, we have judge Tanya Chutkan who is a distinguished jurist with a career that includes being a defense attorney (so she knows all the tricks) who doesn’t play around. She made that crystal clear this weekend. The magistrate who handled the DC indictment had been in touch with her and told everyone two things – first to be back on Aug. 28 AND that at that hearing a trial date would be set! Trump and his lawyers must have felt like the punter from the DC pro football team was there crotch punting the lot of them! She also gave Trump himself a direct talking to about behaving himself in the meantime.
I know anyone reading this thought right then and there that before the day was out Trump would be shooting off his mouth. Which of course he did.
Smith, knowing it too was ready. As was the case in FL he doesn’t want to wait for a judge’s order to start providing discovery to the defense. He’s ready to go right now. But given Trump shooting off his mouth, including with a threat he filed a motion asking for a Protective Order before starting to hand over discovery. Judge Chutkan in who’s capable hand the case now sits told Trump’s lawyers to respond by 5pm tomorrow. Team Trump immediately whined there was no way they could possibly do so, and asked for three additional days at which time they’d want a hearing to discuss any Protective Order. That they needed those days to prepare their motion.
Judge Chutkan promptly turned around last night and said NO. Like some teachers I once had she pretty much gave them a ‘you WILL have your homework handed in on time” with a demeanor we all can remember that made it clear there would be hell to pay if it wasn’t. Trump, and his lawyers too are beside themselves. Sure, they probably figured DC wouldn’t be quite the gravy train their pal in FL, judge Cannon had them on but THIS, and right out of the gate has to feel like getting smashed in the mouth by Muhammed Ali back in his prime.
I haven’t even gotten to the best part. Manhattan DS Alvin Bragg says no problem to delaying his case if the feds need March, 2024 for a trial. At one time December seemed to be a window for the FL case, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the DC trial scheduled (originally) for then, but allowing for some face saving (and to minimize chances of being overturned on appeal) it’s easy to imagine things slipping to the latter part of Feb. now that March is available to the feds. More than a months worth of trial days.
This is a true bombshell folks. Until this past week it seemed doubtful Trump would face charges over January 6 before next year’s elections. At best he’d face a trial in FL in front a a judge prepared to do all she can to help him skate, and with a jury pool that provides more than a slim possibility of a hung-jury. It only takes one but if that were to happen it would be explosive because Trump, the GOP and all of right-wing media would scream from the rooftops that Trump was innocent! And Judge Aileen Cannon has been their not so secret “big gun” that would help foster that, if she can’t manage to delay the trial past the election.
Now however, if she things she’s been getting some pressure on and being cast in an unflattering light over the child porn/exploitation there will be a boatload of comparisons between her dithering and lack of experience (and competence) compared to going on in DC. And Trump could well be tried and convicted in DC before she even gets her turn at bat! I really believe despite what too many GOPers are saying a convicted Trump will be done as the GOP nominee. It could well change the dynamic in the FL jury pool too. Finding even one juror to be a holdout will be a lot tougher. Not to mention Cannon will face a spotlight as focused and intense as that faced by Presidential candidates and forced to play things a lot more evenly than she wants to.
Judge Cannon will have been “spiked.”
One final thought. Cannon has just bungled a trial of someone accused of sexual crimes – against children. She’s got to be thanking her lucky stars that while five or six major outlets have written about it the matter hasn’t broken through nationally and become part of the daily discussion. That needs to change, and I know how. The question is whether the bosses in the news business will allow it but what should happen is this:
If not every day, then several times a week multiple journalists from major outlets need to ask, if not directly to him then on camera/in print why the Chief Judge overseeing Cannon hasn’t convinced her to recuse herself. Or, despite doing so being unusual taking the necessary steps to have her replaced, and soon. If before the end of this month Cannon were off that case a trial next May WOULD happen. Also, if somehow Trump was still in the race at that point, even if the presumptive nominee by then despite being a convicted felon out and about during appeal (MORE special treatment rich/powerful folks get that you and I don’t) a second conviction would be the coup de grace to his dreams of a second term.
It would make for a helluva GOP convention don’t you think? Maybe enough that media bosses would “settle” for that instead of months of Trump vs. Biden generated ratings and ad revenue. But that’s another article. Maybe tomorrow I’ll dig into it.
I wonder if it’s also possible that Judge Cannon wants to have a real career. If so, she might (while still paying attention to Federalist Society demands, and putting a thumb on the scale) be careful NOT to go too far overboard again. She might in fact seek advice from one or more of the (very conservative, but not MAGA crazy) appellate justices mentioned above regarding the proper conduct of this trial.
A bit like Governer Kemp and SoS Raffensperger in Georgia being perfectly comfortable with setting up biased election rules, but then refusing to comply with then-President Trump’s demands to straight out cheat when the Democrats won the 2020 races anyway.
This would be a good outcome, given the apparent strength of the case, because it would mean we wouldn’t see anything truly obscene (such as a directed acquittal). (However, if any MAGAT managed to get onto the jury, we could still see nullification . . .)
…National Security Trial (Again- It’s NOT a ‘documents trial”, they are just evidence and the real issue is a massive breask to our National Security!)…
Thanks for continuing to remind us of this fact. As a result, whenever I read MSM I automatically replace theirs with your correction and make comments there, too.
You sure have a lot of typographical errors in that. I lost count.
I may not be the world’s worst typist, but I flunked two typing classes. I also read around 500-500worda per minute,and am incapable of proofing my own writing because my brain fills in the correct spelling and typing.
I have a lot of experience with people correcting my errors. Over the years,I have noticed is that those,who caro about my typing are those who cannot rustle up a single fact or even a logical argument to refute the gist of my post.
Thank you for proving my point, Miranda.
P.S. I have two.graduate degrees. I graduated magna cum laude. I am Phi Beta Kappa. I turned down free rides from two Ivies. And I can hardly be the result of affirmative action since I am white, had a 3.7 GPA and was Dean’s List for 8 semesters while carrying an 18 credit schedule, and was recommended for a Danforth. I am also the published author of short stories that were translated into German and Hungarian,and also.published in Australia. My first sale was to an anthology that won multiple awards.
I’m an engineer and not a typist but I can read and write fluent Typonese.
I never comment unless the incorrect word makes the thing humorous (and then I applaud)
I’ve been around for awhile Denis. You can ask Ursula. Anyway, I’ve not really caught on to your style. You seem to have a penchant for writing long articles. Nothing wrong with that. But this article, I gotta say, nails it. Yes, Smith knew exactly what he was doing when he went to Florida. They talk about court shopping and all that crap. Smith as much as asked for Cannon for as much as what you say. What I would say would be when Garland showed him what he had Smith probably said, Holy Sh*t! Then what was it, getting the documents sorted and Smith has to go to higher court on the idiot. Everyone saying ain’t no way he’s going back to that. But that’s precisely why he did. What I’m seeing is Jack’s old school. He’s going to take this rookie and give her a lesson in the law. Now win or lose this is going to be something to see. You forget, Smith ain’t no amateur. He just came off the Hauge and I gotta tell you. They aren’t going to let some wet behind the ears law professor type prosecute war criminals and war crimes. The same thing with the J6 court. If I didn’t know better someone had a hand in stopping the wheel on the lady judge. And isn’t there another lady judge involved there. Now this is what they call poetic justice. Trump going to have his life and freedom in the hands of a no nonsense female judge 👩⚖️ who is going to make that fat tub of lard jump through hoops between now and the most likely outcome which is conviction on all charges. And hell, the way it’s starting to look. There are state after state that had these clowns with there fake elector schemes wanting to cash in on the fun. And the way it sounds they want to drag Trump into it. I don’t know, maybe I read the articles it didn’t sound good for trump.