Come TF on Aileen.
The post Judge Cannon Is Back On Her Bullshit appeared first on Above the Law.
Aileen Cannon
This morning, a US District judge ordered the attorney general of the United States to violate federal law. That judge was of course Aileen Cannon, who has done literally everything she could to shield the man who put on her on the bench four years ago after he’d lost the presidency.
Yesterday, Trump’s henchmen Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, who remain as defendants in the stolen documents case until their boss can pardon them in two weeks, asked Judge Cannon to do them one more solid. Building on her amazing discovery that special counsels are unlegal, they’re asking her to enjoin non-entity Jack Smith and his non-boss Attorney General Merrick Garland from releasing the final non-report of the investigation to Congress.
They argue:
Despite this Court’s concluding that Smith is unconstitutionally appointed and funded, and despite ongoing proceedings against Defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, Special Counsel Smith, in defiance of this Court’s rulings, is determined to have the final word by pushing forward with issuing and transmitting a final report under 28 C.F.R. § 608(c) (the “Final Report”) which Attorney General Garland is certain to make immediately public. These Defendants will irreparably suffer harm as civilian casualties of the Government’s impermissible and contumacious utilization of political lawfare to include release of the unauthorized Report. The Final Report relies on materials to which Smith, as disqualified special counsel, is no longer entitled access— making his attempt to share such materials with the public highly improper.
The motion attached a letter from Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche, in his usual incendiary style, screeching that “Smith lacks authority under our Constitution to issue a report because he was not validly appointed, and the plain terms of the permanent indefinite appropriation that he has pillaged for more than $20 million clearly do not apply to his politically-motivated work.”
“The release of any confidential report prepared by this out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor would be nothing more than a lawless political stunt, designed to politically harm President Trump and justify the huge sums of taxpayer money Smith unconstitutionally spent on his failed and dismissed cases,” he went on. “Under such circumstances, releasing Smith’s report is obviously not in the public interest—particularly in light of President Trump’s commanding victory in the election and the sensitive nature of the ongoing transition process.”
Shortly after, Trump himself moved to intervene before Judge Cannon, either as an interested party or a friend of the court, he cares not which. He’d like everything the henchmen asked for, plus a command that “following full briefing, order Smith not to transmit the Report to the Attorney General, and order the Attorney General not to issue any aspect of Smith’s missive to the public.”
Meanwhile at the Eleventh Circuit, which would appear to have jurisdiction over this matter since Judge Cannon’s dismissal has been appealed, the henchmen brought a motion suggesting that the appeals court might like to step back and let Aileen deliver the kill shot.
If the district court does not take action on Defendants’ emergency request within 24 hours, Defendants will notify the Court. Relatedly, under United States v. Ellsworth, 814 F.2d 613, 614 (11th Cir. 1987), this Court may now relinquish jurisdiction to the district court so that further proceedings may take place in the interest of judicial economy and to avoid the duplication of judicial effort. Hence, Defendants further move to remand to the district court for consideration of whether the disqualified Special Counsel may lawfully transmit the Final Report—and, if so, what material in the Final Report must be protected, at the very least while the criminal case is pending.
After which Judge Cannon summarily granted the injunction, without even bothering to pretend to go through the four-factor test for irreparable harm, likelihood of success, etc. She simply gestured in the direction of “irreparable harm arising from the circumstances as described in the current record in this emergency posture” and enjoined the DOJ and Attorney General Garland from releasing the report to anyone outside the executive branch. Her order purports to restrain release of the entire report, even the parts pertaining to crimes committed in the DC Circuit, where special counsels are decidedly not unlegal. She even reserved the right to take another crack at it after the appeals court weighs in, adding that “This Order remains in effect until three days after resolution by the Eleventh Circuit of the Emergency Motion, unless the Eleventh Circuit orders otherwise.”
That would appear to contradict settled law, since the special counsel regs mandate that, at the conclusion of his investigation, the SC “shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached,” and “The Attorney General will notify the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Judiciary Committees of each House of Congress, with an explanation for each action.”
But Judge Cannon, who invented a whole new theory of jurisdiction so that Trump could challenge the warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, has never been one to concern herself with such niceties.
It appears that we’ll soon find out whether the Eleventh Circuit cares about such niceties, since it’s ordered the DOJ to respond by 10 a.m. tomorrow. They kicked Cannon to the curb last time. Let’s see if they’ll rouse themselves to do it again.
US v. Trump [SDFL Docket via Court Listener]
US v. Trump [11th Circuit Docket via Court Listener]
