Judge Aileen Cannon is planning on holding a sprawling hearing on Donald Trump’s request to declare Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel invalid, signaling the judge could be more willing than any other trial judge to veto the special prosecutor’s authority.
"The issue, now before Cannon in the Southern District of Florida federal court, is likely to remain in the political debate at least until Cannon holds a hearing on the legal power of the special counsel to prosecute a defendant, on June 21."
Jack Smith has to file a motion to have her removed at this point. I understand that under normal circumstances, you don't want to piss off the judge. But how much more adversarial can she be at this point? She's literally trying to have him removed from the case. At this point, Smith has nothing left to lose. What else could she do to him? Have him deported?
This has got to be appealed if/when she rules that he has no authority to prosecute. If she rules that special prosecutors have no authority to bring these cases and that ruling were allowed to stand, wouldn't it invalidate other cases brought by special prosecutors? Or at the very least give those convicted grounds for having their convictions thrown out?
The role of a district court judge is to do two things:
Apply existing precedent to individual cases to the greatest extent possible.
Set new precedent only when absolutely necessary because the facts of the case don't align well to existing precedent.
Cannon has basically decided to do the exact opposite of these two rules by pretending that the facts of this case are so incredibly unprecedented that she has to throw out the rulebook and set new precedents on everything.
Literally the only unusual thing about this case is that the defendant, a private citizen who currently gets free government security protection for the rest of his life, used to be a president. That's it. Everything else about this case is straightforward obstruction of justice and willful retention of national security information.
Literally the only unusual thing about this case is that the defendant, a private citizen who currently gets free government security protection for the rest of his life, used to be a president. That’s it.
That, and he got to appoint his own judge. And he's got 3 members of the Supreme Court to back him up. And he's got all sorts of national security secrets, but is still walking around free. And he's got virtually unlimited resources, but isn't considered a flight risk.
Trump has, in my humble opinion, something on the judge or the judge's family from his time in the office of the president and access to warrantless wiretapping all US Americans from LEO/CIA/NSA information.
Trump, in my humble opinion, has found and used private information to flex on the judge.
Remember that she has several motions that she has yet to rule on, along with some that she has stated that she will not rule on until after the trial starts. Which means her plan is:
Delay the trial by any means necessary that aren't appealable until after the election.
If Trump wins, he orders the DOJ to back off of his cases, so she doesn't have to do anything. Trump walks.
If Trump loses, she can start the trial, seat the jury, then rule on those motions and dismiss the case with double jeopardy attached. Trump walks.
There's not enough of us, and definitely not enough of us with actual force, or any skills useful to applying or upkeeping that force. I've spent a lot of time finding my local revolutionary minded kin and what I learned is aim small. Have a small circle you can sustain, learn to grow food, get good at running, and keep a well maintained weapon. When shit hits the fan build parallell societies or camps or communes or whatever. Keep your network big and your goals small. Also learn ham radio. With a car battery and a wire antenna placed high enough, the 20m and 40m bandwidths can propagate worldwide day and night. Most people would rather watch fascism win and be in peace than try to fight it but be in conflict.
If you're trying to keep track of where we're at in the Trump prosecutions:
Updated 06/05/2024
New York 34 state felonies Stormy Daniels Payoff
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest
Trial
Conviction <- You Are HereGuilty, all 34 counts.
Sentencing - July 11, 2024
Florida 40 federal felonies Top Secret Documents charges
Investigation
Indictment
Original indictment was for 37 felonies. 3 new felonies were added on July 27, 2023.
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - May 8th, 2024 - Trial has been placed on an Indefinite Hold.
A June 21st hearing is scheduled to determine if the Special Prosecutor even has the authority to prosecute the case.
Conviction
Sentencing
Washington, D.C. 4 federal felonies January 6th Election Interference
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - The trial, originally scheduled for March 4th, has been placed on hold pending the Supreme Court ruling on Presidential Immunity. They heard those arguments on April 25th. and the ruling is expected in June.
Conviction
Sentencing
Georgia 10 state felonies Election Interference
As of 3/13/24 - Judge McAfee cleared 6 charges, 3 against Trump, saying they were too generic to be enforced.
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
All 19 defendants have surrendered.
Trial - An October 4th, 2024 hearing has been set to determine if Fani Willis can remain on the case.
Three defendants, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, and bail bondsman Scott Hall, have all pled guilty and have agreed to testify in other cases.
Conviction
Sentencing
Other grand juries, such as for the documents at Bedminster, or the Arizona fake electors, have not been announced.
The E. Jean Carroll trial for sexual assault and defamation where Trump was found liable and ordered to pay $5 million before immediately defaming her again resulting in a demand for $10 million is not listed as it's a civil case and not a crimimal one. He was found liable in that case for $83.3 million.
There had been multiple cases in multiple states to remove Trump from the ballot, citing ineligibility under the 14th amendment.
The Supreme Court ruled on March 4th that states do not have the ability to determine eligibility in Federal elections.
To be honest, I don't think it's about quantity, but more about quality.
I'd rather Trump have one, one single charge of insurrection that leads him to life in prison (or 20 years or whatever, which would pretty much be life for him), than 50 that lead to nothing.
The problem is that we clearly like it enough to not do something about it. Until the right wing crazies become more than a slight inconvenience for the moderates, then nothing is going to change.
To be clear, you and I are both sitting by letting this happen.
This dumb cow is being pretty obvious about it. That's the thing about conservative crime, they're not very smart and are usually pretty easy to catch. The inability to take another's perspective is a pretty major limitation. They all say they can do it but they don't know what it really means and bluster their way past as always. nasty arrogant crooks.
I'm fairly certain it has to be requested by one of the parties. I'm sure Jack Smith's team has been getting it ready for quite some time now, but you only want to fire when you're 103% certain it will work, otherwise you've just made things a lot harder for yourself.
Cannon has already taken a drastically different tack from other trial-level federal judges who have handled criminal cases charged by recent special counsel’s offices – of which there have been five since Trump became president.
Many of the most substantive legal questions to be decided in the classified records case, which the Justice Department first brought against Trump last June, aren’t yet ripe for a decision.
That work is essentially reserved for defendants’ teams to bring and argue in courts across the country, opposite Justice Department prosecutors.
That third parties are being allowed to opine at the hearing is absurd,” Bradley Moss, a national security law expert based in Washington, DC, told CNN.
Two of those groups support Trump’s position to dismiss the case against him and say the special counsel, for various constitutional reasons, doesn’t have authority to prosecute.
Two former Republican-appointed US attorneys general, Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, are part of the groups of so-called “friends of the court” that side with Trump and whom Cannon will hear from.
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I mean she's covering for a guy who has 100% said he'd kill protestors. At this point its indulgent masturbation to say that we're good people for not taking threats and actions seriously.