Judge Aileen Cannon Is Quietly Sabotaging the Trump Classified Documents Case
Judge Aileen Cannon Is Quietly Sabotaging the Trump Classified Documents Case
Judge Cannon has learned all the wrong lessons from her first, legally untenable pro-Trump ruling of September 2022.
On Friday, District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a new order in the Donald Trump classified documents case adding to the mountain of evidence that she is firmly in the former president’s pocket. Trump appointed Cannon in 2020 and the Senate confirmed her appointment in the days after he lost the 2020 election. It’s deeply offensive to the rule of law for judges to bend the law to benefit those who put them on the bench. Sadly, Cannon does just that.
Cannon’s new ruling rejected special counsel Jack Smith’s entirely standard request that she order Trump to state whether he intends to rely on an “advice of counsel” defense ahead of the trial, currently scheduled for May 20. Advance notice of the defense helps expedite a trial because defendants asserting it need to provide additional discovery to prosecutors—raising the defense means that defendants must disclose all communications with their attorneys, as the defense waives the attorney–client privilege.
Judge Cannon’s brief order asserted that Smith’s motion was “not amenable to proper consideration at this juncture, prior to at least partial resolution of pretrial motions” and further discovery.
Sound innocuous? It’s anything but. Instead, it’s part of a pattern we’ve already seen of Cannon laying the groundwork for delaying Trump’s trial—until it’s too late for a jury to be empaneled and the case tried to verdict before the election.
must be nice getting to appoint the judge directly involving your criminal case
what a cunt.
Why is she being allowed to get away with this? Didn't she already get reprimanded?
She was also separately the judge in an earlier lawsuit that Trump filed trying to stop the government from examining what it obtained with the search warrant, for reasons that made no sense and they couldn't really articulate. The Trump filings were essentially legal nonsense, so this judge took it upon herself to try to weave together something else for them, that still didn't make any sense. She was faffing about with appointing a time consuming special master (not at all appropriate for that situation) and trying to find ways to prevent the government from examining the evidence. Jack Smith played along with her but at the same time appealed the legality of any of this to the eleventh circuit (actually pretty conservative circuit too). When they finally got the case they said this is all legal nonsense, you never should have even taken up this complaint, accused them of just doing all this only because he was a former president. It was a pretty crazy opinion to read, they were not happy with her. Case was dismissed and the government was finally able to examine all the evidence they had seized with the search warrant. Whole charade delayed the investigation by at least 6 months.
And then when the government finally file charges after the investigation is complete, she gets pulled, again, to be the judge in this case (randomly apparently but from a very small potential pool). Ugh. So that's why we have her again. It's been reported Jack Smith has contemplated filing for her removal from the case. It's a tall order though and would also delay things. Potentially could be trying to gather even more evidence for bias before trying to make such a play, or could be trying to see if there's any way he could still get it through in a timely manner while she plays interference for Trump. Either way it's infuriating, as she's tying up probably the most solid criminal case against him, probably trying to delay it past the election.
Don’t you already know the answer to this though? 😢
Search your feelings.
My physical demeanor will change dramatically towards the powerful, wealthy, and forceful if Trump wins another term. I was very ragged through that entire term. And I will be much worse in dealing with it again.
But I refuse to abandon the US to Trump and his toadies and run off to another country.
There will be plenty to take care of here.
why wait for then to break out the molotovs.
My only hope for a Trump second term is a true unifing force for the politically unaffiliated.
It's so sickening that a teabagger like this, being the Fifth Column which is against our Constitution, against freedom, and against America, can have a job within our government even now.
Makes me wish I devoted my life to being a scumbag. Would have guaranteed a high level position in trumps government. Darn shame I feel emotions, really.
Just trying to string it out till the election, then he can pardon himself if he wins or start a civil war if he loses.
He’s going to do both.
Remind me: doesn't a pardon include or rather imply an admission of guilt?
Because no guilt, no grounds for pardon, right?
Can pardons be effectively handed out for all kinds of crimes? Or are there crimes, which just can't be pardoned - strictly from a legal point of view of course.True, but what does that matter to him? He’s their god king. It’s all for the sound bite they can parrot.
That's more DoJ policy, which is legally like an employee handbook: precedent that it is to be followed when deciding to prosecute cases. It would still need to go to court and be weighed by a judge.
Edit: On the topic of civil or state charges, it can be argued as admission of guilt, but again, up to the court to decide.
The President ultimately gets to decide who to pardon. Everything else relates to the Office of the Pardon Attorney/DoJ is there to "help" the President make the president make his decisions. And Trump has already ignored the norm and pardoned whoever he wanted.
It sounds absolutely batshit insane that judges can take sides and not be impartial when it comes to politics in the US.
Well they aren't supposed to, the US government is pretty corrupt
Seems like it's more of "Jack Smith wants to get this trial going" vs. "Cannon maybe wants to back door delay it a little while."
In any case, I don't think Smith is going to win his fight for a speedy trial. There are just too many was to dilly dally.
Someone wants to be on the Supreme Court.....too bad Trump doesn't really reward loyalty.
Quietly?
Quiet is relative. She's not frothing at the mouth yet, so she's not quite as loud as most Trump-Slurpers.
Ehh, I got that reference.
She's doing it in a way that leaves her with plausible deniability.
You'd be surprised how many lawyers & judges are republicans
I really don't think I'd be very surprised at this point
I misread and thought that a Camera company was going against Trump.
“not amenable to proper consideration at this juncture, prior to at least partial resolution of pretrial motions” and further discovery.
Sound innocuous? It’s anything but.
maybe, maybe not. we don't know why she's considering her pretrial motions in such an order, but it's not necessarily evidence of malfeasance, nor of anything else. she didn't decline to consider the motion nor deny the motion outright-- nor at all; she just said, basically, "not right now, we need to do a few other things first." this isn't exactly unusual.