Cannon sabotages Trump classified documents case
Last 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.
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.
That is, of course, just what Trump has been angling for.
Back in November, Cannon issued an order slow-walking all pretrial motions in the case. As Politico reported, she “has postponed key pretrial deadlines, and she has added further slack into the schedule simply by taking her time to resolve some fairly straightforward matters.”
As Brian Greer, a former Central Intelligence Agency attorney, told Politico, Cannon’s decision not to expedite pretrial motions “could be seen as a stealth attempt to delay the ultimate trial date without actually announcing that yet.”
New York University law professor Andrew Weissmann, the mild-mannered and knowledgeable former deputy to special counsel Robert S. Mueller, put it with uncharacteristic bluntness: “Judge Cannon’s bias is showing over and over again.” On Twitter he declared her to be “in the bag for Trump.”
By continuing to maintain the trial date while rendering the date virtually impossible to keep, Cannon evidently hopes to maintain plausible deniability from charges like Greer’s or Weissmann’s.
At the same time, her pretense that the trial will commence on schedule prevents any attempt by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis to seek to advance into May the scheduling of her prosecution of Trump for attempting to interfere with Georgia’s 2020 election.
All of this suggests that Cannon has learned all the wrong lessons from her first, legally untenable pro-Trump ruling of September 2022, which was slapped down quickly by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
In that initial decision, Cannon blatantly violated precedent to help Trump delay Smith’s national security prosecution by granting Trump’s legally groundless request to appoint a special master to rule on the propriety of the FBI’s seizure of the classified documents from his country-club home. The appellate court quickly reversed Cannon’s ruling as improper judicial interference with an entirely lawful executive branch exercise of investigative power.
Nor could Cannon pretend otherwise. Indeed, she granted Trump’s unprecedented request on the astonishing basis that “the investigation and treatment of a former president is … unique … ” thereby saying the quiet part out loud by defying the first principle of a society based on the rule of law: No one, not even the most powerful person, is above the law.
As the reliably conservative 11th Circuit stated in quickly reversing Cannon’s ruling: “To create a special exception [for a former president] would defy our Nation’s foundational principle that our law applies to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.”
Our legal system entrusts trial judges with a wide swath of discretionary decisions in ruling on evidence, framing jury instructions, and controlling other facets of the cases they try, with barely any appellate supervision. As a result, it’s difficult to imagine that anything that deserves to be called justice will emerge from a criminal proceeding over which Cannon presides in which the fate of her benefactor, and thus her own career, is at stake.
It may well be that Smith is biding his time before moving to recuse this manifestly compromised jurist. He may be waiting until she finally does what seems inevitable — orders that the trial date be vacated. If so, by that time, he is likely to have even more evidence of Cannon’s bias, both actual and apparent, to place before the court of appeals.
Let’s hope it won’t be too late for Trump’s alleged crimes against the nation’s security be fairly tried before the election.
This originally appeared in Slate.
With the possible exception of fights over the national debt and Supreme Court nominations, there is no topic that arouses more partisan hypocrisy than presidential use of military force. And globally, there is no issue that arouses more hypocrisy than Israel. Put them together and you have a perfect storm of double standards.
Let’s establish some relevant facts. On Oct. 7, Iran-backed Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israel, a close American ally, from Gaza. Israel counter-attacked. President Biden repeatedly warned regimes in the region, specifically Iran, not to get involved. On Oct. 24, Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed America would respond to attacks on American forces “swiftly and decisively.”
Iran didn’t listen (and America didn’t respond swiftly or decisively). Iranian-backed militias attacked American bases in Iraq and Syria. In November, Houthis, an Iranian proxy group which controls parts of Yemen, started launching rocket, drone and missile attacks, on both Israel and on international shipping in the Red Sea with logistical support from Iran.
Houthis claimed they were merely attacking ships trading with Israel but the attacks were indiscriminate, ensnaring ships with no ties to Israel and dislocating global trade. In December, a U.S. warship shot down three drones in self-defense.
Last week, after intense criticism for failing to make good on his warnings, Biden ordered significant attacks on Houthi assets in Yemen, with assistance from Britain and other allies.
There isn’t room to feast on the banquet of hypocrisies on offer but let’s nibble on the most obvious. One of the first things Biden did upon taking office was remove the Houthis from the official list of terrorist organizations. He now says they are terrorists.
Many on the right blistered Biden for dithering are now angry that he didn’t consult with Congress before retaliating. Many on the left, who had no objections to the Obama-Biden administration’s attacks on Libya in 2011, are mad at Biden for attacking a group allied with Hamas.
Globally Israel critics, who make a big show of being supporters of international law, are rallying to the Houthi cause. One chant, heard in New York and London, “Yemen, Yemen make us proud, turn another ship around.” This crowd insists that its animus toward Israel