The MAGA-friendly federal judge who keeps siding with Donald Trump in his Mar-a-Lago classified records case has forced prosecutors to make a stark choice: allow jurors to see a huge trove of national secrets or let him go.
U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’sultimatum Monday night came as a surprise twist in what could have been a simple order; one merely asking federal prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers for proposed jury instructions at the upcoming trial.
But as she has done repeatedly, Cannon used this otherwise innocuous legal step as yet another way to swing the case wildly in favor of the man who appointed her while he was president.
Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith must now choose whether to allow jurors at the upcoming criminal trial to peruse the many classified records found at the former president’s South Florida mansion or give jurors instructions that would effectively order them to acquit him.
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Cannon is a partisan hack that needs removed, NOW. She has deliberately ignored the CIPA system used to substitute summations for classified materials.
I don’t understand how anyone can see someone who was appointed by one of the people involved in the case, and stands to benefit further if said person wins the case, is not a conflict of interest.
I’ve seen lawyers drop a case over a distant family member they haven’t spoken to in decades having once lived with the sitting judge in college. Something that as far as I can see has no bearing on current events at all.
I’ve seen locals get angry at a judge because they were seen eating in the same restaurant as someone involved in a case, on different sides of the building. With the partitions and seating arrangements, it’s likely neither of them even knew the other was there until someone pointed it out.
But this is totally fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. We’re all fine here, now. Thanks.
How are you?
It very much is a conflict of interest!
The issue is that there doesn’t appear to be anybody both willing and able to do anything about it.
I’m feeling F.I.N.E.
Fuck Is Not Enough
Why the fuck would Juror’s need to see the files?
The content within them is irrelevant to the case, other than to determine whether if they are/were Top Secret or not, and Juror’s aren’t able to make that distinction.
You need an expert/qualified person to deem whether the content was top secret.
Then the juror’s decide on the case whether they should have been there or not.
Well it sounds like it could create another lengthy appeal before trial, so that might be the entire reason…
If it comes up, she can, for example, order the documents be provided to the defense as part of discovery. I would not be shocked to learn she has the power to do something similar with the jury - but this sounds like an undeniable excuse for Smith to ask for her to be overridden by her superiors, like he did earlier in the case.
That’s exactly why she’s doing it. To make the prosecutors appeal like last time, which takes time. Trump just wants to delay all his cases until after the election so he can drop them all when he’s president. This is potentially the most serious case against him, as the government doesn’t mess around with classified info, but since it’s a federal case, he’ll have the most power to drop it once he’s president.
Yes. But the prosecutors could just redact all classified material. The contents are irrelevant to the case, just the fact that they are classified. Prosecutors can just redact every line and paragraph that’s portion marked classified.
Or Biden has the ability to allow anyone to see any classified material if they need to go that far.
Then the terrorist base would start dishonestly whining about Biden interfering in the case.
To be clear, I don’t give a shit about their whining, but all indications are that Biden still doesn’t realize democracy is in a fight to the death and still thinks appearances matter.
And even then many of these are SCI. Just having a TS is not enough.
Smith needs to call the bluff. If jurors see what’s inside, it’ll surely shock them that Trump was brazen about spreading it around. She hasn’t thought this through.
I thought it was only illegal for people with security clearance to improperly handle or view documents. Otherwise a journalist that published a story based on leaked documents could be prosecuted for looking at the documents.