Come On, Aileen

Federal judge for the Southern District of Florida Aileen Cannon has been randomly assigned to oversee the case of the United States of America v. Donald Trump. This is alarming.

This isn’t alarming just because she’s a Trump-appointed judge. It’s alarming because she has previously used her position to choose Trump over the law, and she got smacked down for it.

First off, Cannon was confirmed in November 2020 AFTER Joe Biden won the presidential election. Remember that horseshit from Republicans about allowing the voters to have a say in who receives lifetime appointments on federal courts? Yeah, right. She got a lifetime appointment from a president (sic) after the majority of the nation rejected that president (sic). But then again, the majority of voters rejected him in 2016 and he gave three fundamentalist goosestepping fucknut shitweasel goons lifetime appoints on the Supreme Court.

Last August, in 2022, after the Justice Department served a warrant on Trump and Mar-a-Lago, seizing all (maybe) the classified documents he stole and refused to return, Trump asked Judge Cannon to appoint a “special master” to go over all the documents to determine which fell under attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. And before the Justice Department could interject or even make a statement, she allowed it. This was totally unprecedented.

Cannon cited exceptional “stigma associated with the subject seizure”, since Trump was a former president (sic), as well as the potential for great “reputational harm” from any future indictment based on “property that ought to be returned.” Except none of it should have been returned. Trump’s lawyers didn’t even specify any material that should be returned to him.

Law 360, a subscription-based legal newsletter in New York City. named this case as one of ten “major legal ethics cases” of 2022, with Cannon having “appeared particularly concerned with Trump’s personal interests”, and in an “ill-suited” move, she allowed the usage of executive privilege “to shield materials between different parts of the executive branch”, leading to “howls from various corners of the legal establishment.” That’s a legal way of saying what she did was a bunch of corrupt bullshit.

Cannon refused to accept the DOJ’s claims that the documents were classified “without further review by a neutral third party”, due to “ongoing factual and legal disputes” even though Trump’s lawyers had not disputed that the documents were declassified in any court proceeding. With a judge like Cannon in his pocket, Trump didn’t even need his lawyers (who are all quitting now, by the way).

Cannon also rejected the DOJ’s argument that Trump’s possession of the material risked “imminent disclosure of classified information and cited “leaks to the media after the underlying seizure” of the documents, without specifying what sources might have been responsible for the leaks.” And now we know that Trump had these documents in his shower and next to his toilet while also showing them off to individuals who lacked the proper security clearances…if any. Cannon was making shit up.

In September 2022, the Eleventh Circuit smacked her down and revoked the “special master.” The appeals court stated that under Cannon, “the district court abused its discretion in exercising equitable Justice over the case, chiefly because of Cannon’s own conclusion that Trump “did not show that the United States acted in callous disregard of his constitutional rights”; a critical factor in determining jurisdiction. Furthermore, while Cannon ruled that Trump had an interest in some of the seized documents, the appeals court found that this did not apply to the classified documents and that under Cannon “the district court made no mention” of why or how Trump “might have an individual interest in or need for the classified documents”, which was another factor in determining jurisdiction.

The Republican panel stated that there is “no evidence that any of these records were declassified”, and that in any case, “the declassification argument is a red herring that does not establish Trump’s “personal interest” in the documents even if they were declassified.

Cannon ignored the ruling and agreed with Trump’s legal team on multiple issues, including setting procedures extending the deadline for the review. The Eleventh Circuit had to come back and throw the entire case out to delay the investigation.

Cannon was trying really hard to delay this case for as long as possible, even without citing legal reasons.

The circuit dismissed Trump’s case because Cannon “improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction” over it. The panel stated that Trump needed to show that the case met all four criteria under the Richey test for equitable jurisdiction over lawsuits for seized materials, but failed to do so for any criteria. Trump was like, “What’s Richie Cunningham got to do with it?”

Here’s the good part: The panel said that under Cannon, “the district court stepped in with its own reasoning” multiple times to argue in favor of Trump, sometimes even taking positions that Trump would not argue before the appeals court. They also pointed out that Trump never specified which documents needed to be returned to him or why and that the “district court (Cannon) was undeterred by this lack of information.”

And now Cannon may be in a position to determine what can and can’t be entered as evidence, to determine the trial date, possibly delaying it until after the election, and potentially dismissing the entire thing.

There’s some speculation that after being smacked around and rebuked embarrassingly by the Eleventh Circuit, she will do the right thing now for her legacy as she may never get a case with a profile as high as this. I don’t believe that. Once a goon always a goon.

She will continue to use her position to protect Donald Trump. In the previous case, she even argued positions that Trump’s legal team had missed and ignored the law in several instances.

If she had any ethics, she would recuse herself. But since she is a Trump appointee, she doesn’t have any ethics. Special Counsel Jack Smith needs to make an appeal to have her removed from this case. He has a lot of great reasons.

There will be no justice with Cannon. All we’ll get from Judge Cannon will be more MAGA. A judge throwing out the law to rule in favor of a former president who appointed her is a great example of fascism.

Miami: I’m going to Miami to cover Trump’s arrest. I’m on a train now where I drew the cartoon and wrote the blog, and I just passed Kissimmee. There will be a Miami Sketch Book at this site, consisting of sketches, photos, and videos which will only be seen by those who have contributed to my trip. You can be one of those by making a contribution through PayPal at clayjonz@gmail.com. Any and all amounts are helpful and appreciated. You rock!

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