This is too rich. The timing of this is perfect. The wheels of justice grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine. And they will grind down Donald Trump into orange instant coffee granules at some point. Hey, maybe MAGA can drink that instead of kool-aide — and Melania can sell it along with her jewelry. But I digress. An important legal development happened this morning in the classified documents case. Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a formal appeal of Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the case.
Simply put, Smith’s appeal is based (at least in part) upon the fact that Cannon invented an interpretation of the law that allowed her to dismiss the charges against Donald Trump, either unaware of, or perhaps oblivious to, the fact that if her cockamamie interpretation were to stand that it could impact the functions of both the executive branch and the Department of Justice going forward. This is not good precedent to set, obviously, and that’s why Jack Smith will prevail. Expect to hear legal scholars weighing in for days upon this.
Here are a few choice sections from Smith’s argument, provided by PoliticusUSA:
The Attorney General validly appointed the Special Counsel, who is also properly funded. In ruling otherwise, the district court deviated from binding Supreme Court precedent, misconstrued the statutes that authorized the Special Counsel’s appointment, and took inadequate account of the longstanding history of Attorney General appointments of special counsels. […]
The district court’s contrary reasoning lacks merit. Its focus on the absence of the word “appoint” in Section 515(b) ignores that the term “retain” is synonymous with “appoint” as used Section 515—as the statute’s enactment history makes clear—and that the word “appoint” appears in Section 515(a), confirming that the statute provides appointment authority. The district court’s determination that the phrase “specially retained” in Section 515(b) is a past-tense verb that only applies to already-retained attorneys misunderstands the statute’s grammatical construction—“retained” and “appointed” are past participles that take their tense from the surrounding present-tense verbs—and results in a nonsensical interpretation under which an attorney must be hired and only then (potentially minutes later) could become “specially retained” as a special counsel.
Finally, the district court erroneously treated two provisions—28 U.S.C. §§ 519 and 543, which together clarify that the Attorney General’s supervision of all federal litigation encompasses U.S. Attorneys and any attorneys assisting them—as a limit on the entirely independent authority under Section 515 for an Attorney General to appoint a special counsel to assist him. […]
The district court erroneously disregarded this history as “spotty” or “ad hoc,” giving undue emphasis to superficial differences in the appointment and roles of certain special and independent counsels. The district court’s rationale could jeopardize the longstanding operation of the Justice Department and call into question hundreds of appointments throughout the Executive Branch.
At first blush this is devasting to Cannon. On its face it accuses her of “nonsensical” interpretation of the law based on grammatical folderol. To call what Cannon did overreaching is to softsoap the basic dishonesty of what she did. Cannon has no business advocating in this case in the first place. She’s a judge. But even were she an advocate for Trump there are limits and she’s already stretched the credibility of her argument to the breaking point. In short, she’s looking for a result and she will twist the facts and the law accordingly until they fit into her result, which is to allow Donald Trump to break the law without consequence. This is straight out of Nazi Germany and I don’t think that’s being hyperbolic.
There’s a great scene in Judgement At Nuremburg where the Burt Lancaster character, a Nazi judge, is talking man to man to the Spencer Tracy character, an American prosecutor that he has come to respect during the course of the proceedings. Lancaster says to Tracy, “You must believe me. We never thought things would get where they got to.” Tracy looks him in the eye and says, “Things got there the first time you sentenced a man guilty, when you knew him to be innocent.” Lancaster’s silent response to this is a great moment in cinema as the awful truth dawns on him that Tracy is right. That is how simple it is.
Aileen Cannon is a corrupt judge and I think that history will record her as such. Now, where this gets out of Cannon’s hands entirely is that she intended to deny the United States of justice and allow Trump to walk scot free. She’s not going to achieve that, at least not yet and not soon. What will happen soon, however, is that this could be the October surprise to beat all October surprises. It’s entirely possible that Cannon’s dismissal of the case will be overturned in October.
Focus in on why this is important: Trump lied to MAGA and said that “the case was dismissed in Florida,” but he never told MAGA that that dismissal could be appealed. MAGA thinks it’s a done deal. And forgetting MAGA, because they’ll always find a way to rationalize anything involving Trump, at the very least with the hush money case sentencing being held on September 18 and then a possible overturning of the classified documents dismissal happening in October, the American people as a whole will be reminded of the chaos and criminality of Trump and everything surrounding him.
In short, this is a disastrous development for Trump. And I’m pretty sure that the Harris/Walz campaign, Lincoln Project, Meidas Touch and everybody else who can make a political ad will make several that highlight the chaos and criminality that we can expect to be a normal way of life if Trump is elected.
That’s the slogan for Trump. Forget about Make America Great Again, he should just say, “A vote for me is a vote for chaos and criminality.” Rhymes, even. And it’s dead to rights, spot on true.
As before, Jack Smith continues to demonstrate that he’s playing multiple games of three-dimensional chess, while the loose Cannon thinks she’s playing checkers, and Trump is trying to learn the rules of tic-tac-toe. And the loose Cannon is about to find out that she’s not even in any game.
It was duly noted by legal scholars and others today that Jack Smith didn’t ask for Cannon to be removed from the case. But I believe that will come later. Smith kept his focus on the dismissal itself. But I do not foresee a situation where Cannon has acted so egregiously and she isn’t found to be biased and removed from the case — if not the bench altogether.
Concinnity, I had to vote down your response and here’s why. Yes, Jack is miles ahead of Trump and Cannon in the intellect department, and considering Cannon has demonstrated that she doesn’t have the legal knowledge or integrity to be a municipal court traffic judge, also has infinitely better knowledge of how the law works than her. Butr so what? The “Supreme” Court is a corrupt clown show that will decide whatever their owners (George Carlin was SSSOOOOOO right!!!!) Mitch McConnel and Trammel Crow’s son tell them to do. Thus, given that until the US has an ACTUAL Supreme Court, the Constitution has ALREADY been suspended ( “Citizens United” AND “Trump is a God” rulings). I only have a law degree from Quebec and I understand that the US Consitution has defacto already been suspended !!
And that is why I voted down your response Con. No matter how much I would like your conclusion to be true, until those 6 jokers are replaced with ACTUAL judges, the Law of the Land is whatever Trump and McConnel tell “their” justices it is. The US Constitution is currently a moot point.
Thanks for your response. Remember though that many things change after the election. SCOTUS is the dog that was chasing the car, but caught it.
But it’s teeth got caught, and now the car is going to back up over it and reshape it.
Good job “??” and Jack… I see you got your authorization…. asking for a friend are you taking volunteers that could pass the test
You know the law Ursula. I only know how the law supports injustice. I wonder if these blatant and biased rulings jeopardizes HER position as a judge? I remember that scene between two great actors. I also remember many of the accused didn’t hang for their part in mass murdering 11 million people in thousands of camps. Do you really believe she will personally pay for her corruption? I don’t.
Cannon has a lifetime appointment. She can only be removed from the federal bench via articles of impeachment being approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and then conviction by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Even for federal judge all the way down at the District level it’s been a rare thing to have that process get started, much less succeed. IF she were tried and convicted on some felony and lost her law license (and lawyers that populate State Bars are by nature reluctant to sanction lawyers as we’ve seen) I’m not sure if she could still take the bench. It would be faster to use the impeachment process and with a felony conviction even Republicans might want to dump her. I’ll bet even Leonard Leo and The Federalist Society are wishing they’d never put her up for her job. With all the attention she’s drawn to herself and hew own Federalist Society connections it’s political sunshine on them they neither want nor need these days. Leo might well be trying to arrange for some mega billionare conservative to hire her on as some legal aid. A do nothing (or very little job) at five times or so her current salary (with a nice signing bonus) and great perks – including some fat, fully paid annuities upfront. If the case against Trump is reinstated but more importantly the 11th Circuit removes her or makes it clear that if they have to slap her down one more time she’s gone AND they will recommend sanctions AND Trump loses expect her to quietly resign sometime next year. That’s if I’m right and The Federalist Society has decided she’s out of control and causing more trouble than she’s worth.
I honestly don’t know what will happen to Cannon. And I agree with you, there is much injustice in the world. A lawyer friend of mine somehow ended up in a criminal case. He did legal writing for a living, but somehow, as a favor to somebody, he ended up helping a criminal defendant. He told me, “There are two systems of criminal law in this country, one for the rich and one for the poor. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.” So that’s straight from a lawyer’s mouth.
GEEZ! If Jack Smith had submitted “cannon is an abject idiot squatting on a court bench that could be much better served by your average dog…” it would not have been half as devastating as what he actually submitted. If that silly woman is capable of understanding the basic written word, she ought to be livid–this is a big ask because thus far she has yet to prove she can read at the most basic level let alone at a level that SHOULD be required of a judge who must interpret the law. Some of the sh*t she’s come up with makes me wonder if she was beta testing some A.I./chat bot crap: and it failed miserably.
I think Cannon was given enough rope to hang herself and she did. But first, I just want to see the dismissal overturned and then we’ll see how that plays out. Great October surprise, eh what? :))
I read about Smith’s filing earlier today. It’s not expedited and as you say October could be interesting because by then Trump’s lawyers will have had their deadline (if memory serves) to file their response. Then Smith has I think another 20 days to respond to THAT so I’m not sure we’ll be getting any ruling from the appellate court in October. Of course, they might after seeing Trump’s lawyers response decide they’ve seen all they need to see. However that close to the election I have little faith that such a conservative Circuit will kneecap Trump with a “Cannon is an incompetent hack and this case is not only reinstated but should have been tried and a verdict rendered long ago” ruling.
The dismissal, taken in conjuction with her prior actions so clearly biased towards Trump merit their removing the case from her docket but they only will have one shot at it. My bet is that if they are inclined to do that as they reinstate the case they will wait until November, or maybe December as a way of dumping coal in both Cannon’s and Trump’s Christmas stockings.
Judge Tanya Chutkan is in charge of the calendaring of all of this. I don’t know the dates off the top of my head. But she’s keeping things moving right along and Trump could see a dismissal overturned in September or October. I hope it happens that early because whatever can prove up his criminality pre-election is pure gold.
different case altogether.
She did this to herself. She never did her homework, went with corrupt Thomas’s evil hint and then an attempted assassination was the icing on top. I go with impeachment.
Impeachment of Thomas, Cannon or both?
Pray for both.
Either way, after the election, there’s going to be some big changes.
As usual, Democrats will be cleaning up the big mess that republicans have caused.
But this time the solutions will be structural and final.
probably not, but this should at least tarnish her career and look bad in the history books,
isn’t it the truth, been watching Republican incompetence since the 70s, I’m just amazed there still is a Republican party,
All of them and any that don’t submit..,make them retire. all of em. Blind leaders of the blind.