{"id":102193,"date":"2025-01-29T17:51:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T01:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/29\/trump-doj-dismisses-stolen-docs-case-it-used-to-bury-special-counsel-report\/"},"modified":"2025-01-29T17:51:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T01:51:18","slug":"trump-doj-dismisses-stolen-docs-case-it-used-to-bury-special-counsel-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/29\/trump-doj-dismisses-stolen-docs-case-it-used-to-bury-special-counsel-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump DOJ Dismisses Stolen Docs Case It Used To Bury Special Counsel Report"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the world\u2019s least surprising plot twist, the Justice Department has withdrawn its appeal<\/a> to the Eleventh Circuit in the stolen documents case. And \u2014 don\u2019t stop the presses!<\/em> \u2014 Trump\u2019s henchmen Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira have no objection.<\/p>\n

This turn of events became inevitable on November 5, when Trump won the election. But it\u2019s an exceptional fuck you<\/em> in light of everything that happened in the past three weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To refresh: Trump\u2019s favorite jurist, Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida, used the pending appeal as justification to bury half<\/a> of Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s final report. Her theory was that the report could not be released, even in camera, to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committee, lest its conclusions leak and damage the integrity of the trial.<\/p>\n

Of course, there was never going to be a trial. Judge Cannon dismissed the case last summer on the theory that special counsels are somehow illegal<\/a> \u2014 a conclusion which managed to elude every other jurist who examined it, including the ones at One First Street. That dismissal was on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, which would appear to divest the trial court of jurisdiction. But lack of jurisdiction has never stopped Judge Cannon before!<\/p>\n

The Eleventh Circuit declined to intervene to stop the special counsel from publishing Volume 1, which dealt with the election interference case, or from sharing Volume 2 with Congress. But the appeals court refused to tell Judge Cannon to knock it off, so she dutifully dove on the grenade. On the Friday before Trump\u2019s inauguration, she held a hearing \u2014 complete with oral argument by amici, natch \u2014 before deciding that release of the report would compromise the cases of poor Nauta and De Oliveira. But that decision came after Trump was safely sworn in, at which point the prospect of anyone<\/em> seeing that report was functionally nil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Acting Attorney General James McHenry fired<\/a> a dozen experienced prosecutors who worked on the special counsel investigation, writing \u201cGiven your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President\u2019s agenda faithfully.\u201d (Is the Justice Department supposed to be \u201cimplementing the President\u2019s agenda faithfully?\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ed Martin, the interim US Attorney for DC, is now investigating<\/a> the January 6 prosecutors for charging so many defendants with obstructing an official proceeding under 18 USC \u00a7 1512, calling it the \u201cgreat failure of our office,\u201d and dubbing his quest \u201cProject 1512.\u201d Martin, a former Trump PAC official who marched on the Capitol on January 6, seems unbothered by the fact that every trial judge but one agreed with the DOJ\u2019s interpretation of the law, and upwards of 100 defendants were convicted by juries under it.<\/p>\n

And no one expects Pam Bondi to concern herself much with 28 CFR \u00a7 600.9 and its mandate that \u201cThe Attorney General will notify the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Judiciary Committees of each House of Congress\u201d of the special counsel\u2019s declination decisions, along with an explanation. She\u2019ll probably be too busy indicting Jack Smith for malicious jaywalking and cutting Trump a $100 million check in his tort suit<\/a> against the DOJ for the \u201cillegal\u201d judicially authorized search of Mar-a-Lago.<\/p>\n

Dismissing the appeal means the DOJ is now stuck with Judge Cannon\u2019s fakakta precedent on special counsels. It\u2019s a small price to pay to blow up the last vestiges of accountability for the man who tried to mount a coup to stay in power. The Trump administration can always ignore the ruling when they want to appoint a special counsel to prosecute Jack Smith \u2014 they\u2019re certainly not averse to ignoring laws and precedents as the situation requires.<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The post Trump DOJ Dismisses Stolen Docs Case It Used To Bury Special Counsel Report<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the world\u2019s least surprising plot twist, the Justice Department has withdrawn its appeal<\/a> to the Eleventh Circuit in the stolen documents case. And \u2014 don\u2019t stop the presses!<\/em> \u2014 Trump\u2019s henchmen Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira have no objection.<\/p>\n

This turn of events became inevitable on November 5, when Trump won the election. But it\u2019s an exceptional fuck you<\/em> in light of everything that happened in the past three weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To refresh: Trump\u2019s favorite jurist, Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida, used the pending appeal as justification to bury half<\/a> of Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s final report. Her theory was that the report could not be released, even in camera, to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committee, lest its conclusions leak and damage the integrity of the trial.<\/p>\n

Of course, there was never going to be a trial. Judge Cannon dismissed the case last summer on the theory that special counsels are somehow illegal<\/a> \u2014 a conclusion which managed to elude every other jurist who examined it, including the ones at One First Street. That dismissal was on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, which would appear to divest the trial court of jurisdiction. But lack of jurisdiction has never stopped Judge Cannon before!<\/p>\n

The Eleventh Circuit declined to intervene to stop the special counsel from publishing Volume 1, which dealt with the election interference case, or from sharing Volume 2 with Congress. But the appeals court refused to tell Judge Cannon to knock it off, so she dutifully dove on the grenade. On the Friday before Trump\u2019s inauguration, she held a hearing \u2014 complete with oral argument by amici, natch \u2014 before deciding that release of the report would compromise the cases of poor Nauta and De Oliveira. But that decision came after Trump was safely sworn in, at which point the prospect of anyone<\/em> seeing that report was functionally nil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Acting Attorney General James McHenry fired<\/a> a dozen experienced prosecutors who worked on the special counsel investigation, writing \u201cGiven your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President\u2019s agenda faithfully.\u201d (Is the Justice Department supposed to be \u201cimplementing the President\u2019s agenda faithfully?\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ed Martin, the interim US Attorney for DC, is now investigating<\/a> the January 6 prosecutors for charging so many defendants with obstructing an official proceeding under 18 USC \u00a7 1512, calling it the \u201cgreat failure of our office,\u201d and dubbing his quest \u201cProject 1512.\u201d Martin, a former Trump PAC official who marched on the Capitol on January 6, seems unbothered by the fact that every trial judge but one agreed with the DOJ\u2019s interpretation of the law, and upwards of 100 defendants were convicted by juries under it.<\/p>\n

And no one expects Pam Bondi to concern herself much with 28 CFR \u00a7 600.9 and its mandate that \u201cThe Attorney General will notify the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Judiciary Committees of each House of Congress\u201d of the special counsel\u2019s declination decisions, along with an explanation. She\u2019ll probably be too busy indicting Jack Smith for malicious jaywalking and cutting Trump a $100 million check in his tort suit<\/a> against the DOJ for the \u201cillegal\u201d judicially authorized search of Mar-a-Lago.<\/p>\n

Dismissing the appeal means the DOJ is now stuck with Judge Cannon\u2019s fakakta precedent on special counsels. It\u2019s a small price to pay to blow up the last vestiges of accountability for the man who tried to mount a coup to stay in power. The Trump administration can always ignore the ruling when they want to appoint a special counsel to prosecute Jack Smith \u2014 they\u2019re certainly not averse to ignoring laws and precedents as the situation requires.<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the world\u2019s least surprising plot twist, the Justice Department has withdrawn its appeal to the Eleventh Circuit in the stolen documents case. And \u2014 don\u2019t stop the presses! \u2014 Trump\u2019s henchmen Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira have no objection. This turn of events became inevitable on November 5, when Trump won the election. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":102194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/lawyer-shrugging-600x404-nE4MKm.jpeg?fit=600%2C404&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}