Jack Smith moves to head off Cannon's false jury instruction ploy

[bigtree]

....writing that, "Government must have the opportunity to consider appellate review before jeopardy attaches."

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney 8h
JUST IN: An extraordinary filing from Jack Smith tonight that is almost incredulous at how legally incorrect Judge Cannon's jury instruction scenarios are re: Trump's claim that he designted reams of classified info as "personal" on the way out of the WH. https://t.co/lmmI1dvWDb

Ben Meiselas @meiselasb
Jack Smith just let Judge Cannon know he is ready to file an appeal to the Eleventh Circuit based on her unlawful rulings and if she refuses to rule he will file a writ of mandamus. Smith is done with the games and is calling out Cannon in his most sharply worded motion yet.

watch:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

...what Jack Smith is saying here is that there is no present avenue of appeal on this informal order, and that if Cannon doesn't allow one (essentially by making her order a more formal request), he'll take the extraordinary route of asking the appeals court to rebuke her, and possibly discipline the judge up to removal, by filing what's called a 'writ of mandamus.'

The reason he's concerned is that Cannon can let the instructions stand, and once the trial is underway (and 'jeopardy attaches'), the SC has no way to appeal this. He's also basically telling Cannon to just dismiss the case now, if that's what she's going to ultimately do, so he can appeal her travesty and have her sanctioned or removed for this bastardization of the law.

[BlueKota]

1. High Five to Jack Smith

[Blue Owl]

2. Thank you Jack Smith for not allowing tRump to fail upwards

[SergeStorms]

3. As usaf-vet pointed out in another post....

about this story, isn't it odd that Judge Cannon is the only judge in any of his cases who isn't being harassed by Trump with threatening posts about her and her family? 🤔

Puzzling, isn't it? Why, it's almost as if Cannon has been chosen to be Trump's protector, his guardian angel in the documents trial. But surely that would never happen in the American judicial system. Justice is blind. Right?

Cannon has had her thumb on the scales of justice for Trump ever since she was appointed by him. She's woefully unqualified for that position, and should be removed from any case concerning Trump.

[Hugin]

7. I've come to believe that Cannon's intentions are to show that not only is...

Justice blind, it’s also stupid.

Why is there only one Special Counsel? (Not that I think Jack Smith isn’t up to the task) Considering the vast breadth of TSF’s crimes and the grave seriousness of them against the citizens of the United States, I would think there would be a dozen of them.

[ScratchCat]

9. There is no way imo

That this case got coincidentally assigned to Cannon on a random basis. If it had, there was no argument that accepting it would be ethical given the defendant appointed her. The fact that she didn't recuse herself immediately tells me a)it wasn't random and b)her position is to keep this from trial at all costs because he has no legal defense and will 100% be convicted. Otherwise, she just recuses herself and stays out of it.

[haele]

13. Tin foil hat on; she made sure her docket was open the month assignments were made...

Just to ensure she would get the case, just as she was appointed to be in at that particular court in the event he needed a friendly judge in the Miami Dade area.

Just a tinfoil hat moment, but he knows he's a crook. He just doesn't care, because he gets what he wants no matter what the law says.

Haele

[Qutzupalotl]

15. I heard one source say there was a 1 in 4 chance of getting Cannon.

That's not astronomical, It appears to me this was random chance, albeit very unfortunate.

[SergeStorms]

25. I think you can see....

why Trump appointed her to the southern district in Florida, though. That was a very deliberate appointment.

[Fiendish Thingy]

4. My guess is Cannon will continue to play games

She will nominally “rule” against her original nonsensical jury instructions, then once jeopardy attaches, reverse herself, or find another way of gumming up the works.

What I mean to say is, I don’t think she will give Smith a clear avenue to file for mandamus, risking more public embarrassment and possibly losing her role in protecting Trump from justice.

[Raven123]

5. Smith didn't fall for the ploy. Kudos to his team.

Cannon’s request was so bizarre that a tiny bit of me thinks she actually may know she is in over her head and is hoping to be removed from the case. The larger part of me thinks the likes of Eastman are feeding her bait in hopes of procedurally trapping DOJ.

[lastlib]

8. I fully agree that she is doing whatever she can think of....

to gum it up for the prosecution. I'm dreaming up a lot of senarios that she could be working to save Shithead from legal jeopardy in this. She scares me to death.

[Captain Zero]

27. I think Alito is feeding her bait

You won't convince me otherwise. All this bullshit about vague laws.

[lastlib]

6. Sledgehammer, meet toe!

Smith ain't playin' tiddlywinks here! This is hardball, with 16-lb. lead shot. She is so plainly wrong with this shit, she should be utterly embarrassed by her stupidity. A law-school dropout like myself can see it. And he's letting her have it with buckshot. If she continues on this road, Smith will have no choice but to ask for recusal. And that plays into Drumpf's delay strategy--it almost makes me wonder if that's what she wants.....

[tetedur]

10. This ought to be the statue of Justice outside the courthouse where Cannon presides.

No brain.

[Wild blueberry]

11. Clear explanation, thank you

Helps lower my blood pressure. Thank you!

[rampartc]

12. abiut a year too late.

cannon is on her way to the supreme court just as doon as trump47 can use his immunity to create an opening.

[lees1975]

14. But will this case ever be brought to trial?

I doubt it.

Unless Smith can get Cannon off the case, and replaced with a real judge and not a Trumpie sycophant, it's not going anywhere. Waste of time and taxpayer dollars.

[republianmushroom]

16. Cannon's puppet string need to be cut.

[AllaN01Bear]

18. recursed and or removed or impeached .

[AllaN01Bear]

17. ding ding ding ding ding ding.

[lindysalsagal]

19. He's put her between a rock and a hard place

Good for him. She's just too dumb and corrupt. We may not get justice until this goes to appeal.

[Quanto Magnus]

20. This is starting to feel like

Smith has a case of the Garlands....

Keep it up Cannon, or I might have another sternly worded response....

Unless an actual action is taken to disqualify lose Cannon, I'm going to assume this is just a show for the plebs and no actual consequences will occur.

[bigtree]

23. that's not what happened here

...this is a legal process, not a performance.

This is a necessary step in the process. There isn't an immediate avenue of redress for what Cannon is signaling with her unlawful, non-appealable order.

The SC has limited options, and just rushing to the appeals court without petitioning the judge in the case would just result in it being sent back to make this pro forma notification.

Just a clumsy and embarassing misread, all to try and equate the SC with your undue denigration of the DOJ and SC's documents investigation efforts.

[Blue Idaho]

21. Do it Jack

Slap her down.

[Bev54]

22. If you want some comedy to read, here is Trump's recommended jury instructions

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.427.1.pdf

[calimary]

24. I can't avoid suspicions that she's behaving this way because she's betting on trump being reelected.

Because if she's been good to him, she has reason to hope there'll be a higher position waiting for her if he gets back into the White House. Maybe the next Supreme Court opening (because so much of Congress is so devoid of backbone that they'd rubber-stamp her appointment to please/appease the donald)?

I can't help being suspicious. There's ALWAYS an ulterior motive with this guy. He may have insinuated a "you play yer cards right and there could be some really amazing things coming your way" at some point when they met. Or he sent that message through intermediaries so he'd have plausible deniability and no fingerprints left in questionable places.

I just cannot help being suspicious.

[Pluvious]

26. One observation from Ballon Juice...

On Preet Bharara’s Cafe Insider podcast, he and Joyce Vance were discussing how Cannon is taking this point, which should be decided by the judge before the trial because it is an issue of law and not an issue of fact, and trying to punt it to the jury phase. The were exploring the scenario that by waiting until then, Cannon could dismiss the case based on the ridiculous Presidential Records Act argument and it couldn’t be retried because of double jeopardy (because the trial would have already started.)

...

l don’t think Cannon is smart enough to come up with this ploy, but the Federalist Society operatives who are no doubt advising her certainly are.

[Captain Zero]

28. Yes. Someone is coaching her.

Definitely.

[Duppers]

31. I agree.

The Federalist Society has their hooks everywhere. Unfortunately, hubby & I know one of their employees.

[lindysalsagal]

29. National hero.

[moondust]

30. Documents case "should be" open-and-shut.

Last edited Thu Apr 4, 2024, 05:11 AM - Edit history (2)

The technical requirements for handling classified information are very clear except...for some reason they don't apply to Presidents.

Prosecutors scrutinizing Donald Trump for possible mishandling of classified information will have to do so without a key legal and factual element that has long been a staple of such cases, according to intelligence experts. That’s because, unlike the vast majority of federal workers who access secret information, presidents are not made to sign paperwork on classified documents as part of their joining or leaving the government.

Typically, when a person gets access to restricted information, they are “read in” — a process that includes signing documents at the outset in which they acknowledge the legal requirements not to share information on sensitive programs with unauthorized people or keep classified documents in unauthorized places. When they leave such jobs, they are “read out,” again acknowledging in writing their legal responsibilities and declaring that they do not have any classified documents in their possession.

~

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/25/trump-classified-legal/

Instead of Presidents signing such documents like everybody else, the Presidential Records Act apparently addresses in detail the special case of Presidents. My money is on Jack Smith knowing the details.