On Monday, Donald Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case regarding Trump’s improper handling of classified documents, citing a questionable argument about the Department of Justice’s appointment of a special counsel for the case.
Cannon said that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith violates the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, a longshot argument — presented by Trump’s legal team and supported by far right groups — that goes against long-decided precedent. The decision comes as a surprise even considering Cannon’s documented bias toward Trump and conservatives.
Experts say the decision will be appealed, though it will delay hearing of the case indefinitely — a goal of Trump’s team, who believed that the documents case was the strongest one of the four against Trump, and who have been seeking delays due to the impending election.
The argument against Smith’s appointment was recently supported by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurring opinion to the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. In the opinion, he appeared to be directly lobbying Cannon, and encouraged “lower courts” to examine the question of whether or not Smith’s appointment is legal.
Thomas didn’t directly reference Smith or the documents case, but experts have noted that his mention of the topic while pondering a largely unrelated legal question was Thomas’s way of pushing Cannon to make the decision she did on Monday. The Supreme Court justice had refused to recuse himself from the immunity case, despite his clear conflicts of interest and pro-Trump views.
Cannon’s decision, in which she cites Thomas’s opinion multiple times, has been condemned as a blatant attempt to shield Trump from prosecution, with no legal basis.
“I have been suspicious of the ‘Judge Cannon is undermining the rule of law to protect Donald Trump’ line of argument, mostly because of the extreme rhetoric,” said New York University law professor Noah Rosenblum on social media. “Now I feel very naive. This is bonkers. She is just making things up.”
“Just to be crystal clear: SCOTUS has upheld special counsels repeatedly. Cannon is a district court judge, her job is to apply controlling precedent,” said MSNBC host Chris Hayes. “She’s doing this because she thinks the MAGA court is on the same page as her and Trump’s lawyers and will go along.”
Cannon has been criticized in the past for seemingly purposely delaying the proceedings of the case. Legal experts have called on Cannon to be removed from the case due to her biases toward Trump; last month, The New York Times reported that two judges, including her direct superior, have encouraged her to remove herself from the case.
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Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
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