Only 109 Judge-Shopping Days Until Christmas!

 

 (By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

Just ignore Labor Day and the Halloween decorations that already went up last month, forget about Thanksgiving. Get a jump on your judge-shopping for Xmas! Donald Trump did!

     Federal Judge Aileen Cannon puts a new spin on the phrase, "Trump-appointed judge". The 41 year-old Cannon was appointed to the federal bench by Donald Trump right after he lost the 2020 election. And now, it's becoming increasingly obvious why he'd chosen this particular jurist out of Fort Pierce.

     Indeed, Trump's lawyers, rightly sensing they weren't going to get any love from Judge Magistrate Bruce Reinhart, who'd signed off on the search warrant executed at Mar a Lago about a month ago,  traveled 65 miles to appear in Judge Cannon's court to petition for a special master. After hearing their arguments, she'd actually asked Trump's lawyers why they were in her court and not Judge Reinhart's.

    Still, she'd happily taken on the case even as legal scholars were laughing at Trump's lawyers and their motion to appoint a special master. There's no way Trump will get a special master, they said. Cannon will laugh them out of their court, they said.

    Then Cannon swiftly announced she was very open to the idea of the special master without even hearing the DOJ's side of the story! Yes, she based this preemptive decision on just the Trump lawyers' cockamamie arguments. Part of the DOJ's story, of course, would've partly been that they'd either already looked through or were in the process of looking through the classified files that Trump stole and irresponsibly and sloppily warehoused at Mar a Lago.

    They would've told Judge Cannon that their filter team, or taint team, whose job it is to comb through evidence to ensure it doesn't violate Executive Privilege, had been working beside them.

    But Judge Cannon obviously didn't want to hear that and decided, after having heard only one side of the story, that maybe Trump should be allowed to get his way, you know, like he has for 76 years. And all those legal experts said, "Whaaaa?! No, this can't happen. No, a special master would be like a fifth wheel." Said Sarah Burris on Raw Story,

     "The Justice Department told the judge that they'd already gone through the information, sifting out thousands of documents and information that wasn't related to their investigation into Donald Trump stealing government documents. It isn't likely to take long. But what is concerning among legal scholars is the case law created by Judge Cannon that they don't think should be on the books."

     What case law would that be? Oh, the one that was established yesterday when Cannon decided that Trump was entitled to that special master, after all, since, apparently executive privilege is a legitimate concern here. Despite Trump having no claims to executive privilege since it resides with the current president. Then the laughter stopped.

    This, obviously, set a dangerous precedent that the right wing has suddenly decided, especially in the post-Roe United States, is no longer so important when stare decisis no longer serves their fascistic right wing agenda. Because this case law that was established yesterday could theoretically apply to future presidents.

     Then there was today. Yes, this gets worse.

    A group of alarmed former GOP officials decided in the wake of this ruling that it was time to introduce an amicus brief, or a friend of the court brief, telling the judge where she went wrong and that she might reconsider. So, what did Cannon think of the brief? We'll never know because she refused to hear it.

     But the effrontery from Cannon is not in and of itself based on any established case law, according to legal scholars. Lawfare, the legal analysis arm of the Brookings Institution, raised a whole host of questions and problems with this decision on their Twitter account. 

     Jonathan David Shaub, a contributor to Lawfareblog, began by saying that Cannon's decision doesn't seem to have even a rudimentary understanding of executive privilege. Benjamin Wittes said he, "has never heard of an injunction like this... What does it mean to enjoin the DOJ from reviewing and using the seized materials for 'investigative purposes'?"

     Exactly. Cannon is unnecessarily enjoining, or delaying, this investigation from proceeding because from here on out, the DOJ is forbidden from accessing the documents in question. You know, the ones the DOJ has already examined. Without a special master. (She did, however, allow the intelligence community to do whatever it saw fit to do, which was real big of her.)

     But Lawfare wasn't done. In fact, they were just getting started.

     OK, who should the special master be? After Jonathan Shaub got done laughing (no, really, he was), he suggested a retired judge, since sitting judges would be too busy to do this. It would require someone with a law degree, with no political agenda and could get the necessary security clearance.

     The DOJ is expected to (at least we hope) appeal this ruling. But we may not know for over a  week whether or not it will since Merrick Garland already famously said the DOJ will do all its speaking through its legal filings.

     Considering all the times Trump has sleazed his way out of trouble over the decades, I wouldn't hold my breath awaiting good news on this one, folks. Because now we have to start asking if this was exactly the reason why Trump put Cannon on the federal bench in Fort Pierce to begin with. Because it seems as if, after appointing her, Trump's appointing her to be his legal advocate and, so far, it seems to be working according to plan.

     Because if Cannon, and Trump, have their way (and, again, it appears as if they are), then this can will get kicked well beyond the midterms on November 8th. Which is, of course, the whole idea.