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If you ever needed a good point to highlight the nature of political Lawfare, this is a great example. Julie Kelly essentially notes that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is asking DC Judge James Boasberg to decide what evidence should be given to Florida Judge Aileen Cannon. Julie Kelly – “It appears that records related to the grand jury proceedings in DC on the classified docs case remain under seal and have not been transmitted to Judge Cannon or defense. Recall that almost the entire investigation into the classified docs matter took place in Washington DC–not southern FLA even though it...

A federal court on Tuesday condemned the Department of Justice’s efforts to provide members of Congress Volume II of the Special Counsel report while criminal prosecutions related to the report remained ongoing. While the country has moved on from the issue following Donald Trump’s inauguration, last week’s order crystalizes the Biden Administration’s outrageous weaponization of the DOJ against not just Trump but those associated with him. Two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, the DOJ announced its intent to publicly release Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigations into Trump’s challenges to 2020 election and Trump’s retention of supposedly classified documents....

A federal judge on Tuesday barred the Justice Department from sharing former special counsel Jack Smith's final report on the classified documents case against Donald Trump with members of Congress. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, found there was no urgent need for the Justice Department to share the report with the chair and ranking members of the House and Senate judiciary committees while an appeal involving Trump's co-defendants in the case is still pending. Then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said earlier this month he would not make the report public until the appeals involving Trump co-defendants Walt...

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that the Justice Department cannot share special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents report with members of Congress. U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon extended the hold she had placed blocking the DOJ from sharing with four lawmakers Smith's report on his probe into President Donald Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents. "In short, the Department offers no valid justification for the purportedly urgent desire to release to members of Congress case information in an ongoing criminal proceeding," Cannon wrote in an order published Tuesday, the day after Trump returned to office. Cannon, who dismissed...

Special counsel Jack Smith resigned from the Department of Justice following the completion of his cases against President-elect Donald Trump. Smith resigned on Friday, according to a court filing that was submitted Saturday. Officials at the DOJ urged U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon not to extend the court order issued by her to block Smith's final report, according to Politico. The two cases that Smith oversaw were the so-called classified documents case and the federal election interference case.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s report on President-elect Donald Trump will be released to the public, Department of Justice (DOJ) officials said on Jan. 8. Attorney General Merrick Garland intends to release part one of the report, which deals with Trump, “in furtherance of the public interest in informing a co-equal branch and the public regarding this significant matter,” officials said in a court filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Smith has already transmitted the report to Garland, officials said. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday had ordered the department not to release the report...

Judge Cannon on Tuesday held a final day of hearings on Jack Smith’s classified documents case against President Trump. President Trump’s lawyers filed a flurry of motions to dismiss Jack Smith’s case. Judge Cannon scheduled an expanded hearing to allow both sides to present their cases. Cannon did not issue any rulings after Tuesday’s hearing concluded. One of Jack Smith’s prosecutors threw a tantrum and accused Trump’s attorneys of “hijacking” the hearing. Judge Cannon interrupted Smith’s prosecutor David Harbach and put him in his place. “There is no hijacking going on — it’s about to end,” Judge Aileen Cannon responded,...

Prosecutors on Tuesday filed the charge of attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate against Ryan Wesley Routh, the man they say camped outside of Donald Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course for hours on end, armed with a rifle that he pointed through a chain-link fence with a clear shot to the next hole where the former president was headed on September 15. Routh, allegedly “stalked” Trump in Florida for more than a month, prosecutors told a federal magistrate judge on Monday, with cell phone data allegedly placing Routh at the golf course as well as Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence...

Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed superseding indictments against former President Donald Trump, despite a federal judge previously ruling Smith was unlawfully appointed to pursue. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding to know who authorized this new indictment. In July, Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Smith was unlawfully appointed to his prosecution of Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 Election. As Fox News described, the prosecutor filed a new, amended indictment into a separate probe, which Rep. Gaetz suggests has even less legal validity in his letter. "It is unclear what...

The federal government’s classified documents indictment was once considered a “slam dunk.” But this month, Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida dismissed the case, ruling that the attorney general improperly appointed Jack Smith, and therefore Smith could not legally prosecute Trump. Smith promptly notified Cannon that he intends to appeal her decision, but it’s not clear what his strategy will be. There is now a near-zero chance that Donald Trump will be tried over this case in front of a jury before November—but special counsel Jack Smith is forging ahead with an appeal that could go...

Following the dismissal of Jack Smith‘s classified documents case against former president Donald Trump, the Hollywood left has descended into a collective meltdown. The big win for Trump came after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon handed down her decision on Monday. Cannon said in her 93-page decision that Smith’s appointment was “unlawful” and unconditional. “The clerk is directed to close this case,” she wrote. NBC News reported: She issued the decision on the first day of the Republican National Convention, two days after an assassination attempt against Trump. Trump praised the ruling in a statement that referred to Saturday’s shooting...

Former President Trump on Monday received one of his biggest wins yet in fighting his criminal charges when a judge tossed his classified documents indictment. By ruling that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision sets aside Trump’s 40 criminal charges that accuse him of mishandling classified documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them from Mar-a-Lago. Here are five takeaways from Trump’s major win: First of Trump’s indictments dismissed Decision latches onto Thomas’s concurrence Jack Smith plans to appeal Ruling comes at start of GOP convention Ruling divides Democrats, GOP

Judge Aileen Cannon's dismissal of Donald Trump's classified documents case may backfire on the former president, according to a slew of legal experts, potentially landing the presumptive Republican nominee in another court where he'd be less likely to win on the merits. In her decision Monday, Cannon opined that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith by the Department of Justice violated the Constitution. But she had long frustrated prosecutors and legal observers before this week for repeatedly delaying the trial and appearing partial towards Trump's team, culminating now in a ruling that one expert called "jurisprudential garbage." The decision,...

Jack Smith should be writing a thank you note to U.S. District Court Judge Aileen M. Cannon right about now. By dismissing the so-called classified documents case against Donald Trump and his two co-defendants, Cannon just spared the special counsel and his team months of continued humiliation in her Florida courtroom and, eventually, in front of the nation. In a 93-page order issued on Monday, Cannon, in her typically cautious and detailed manner, explained why Smith’s appointment violated the Constitution; Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith in November 2022 to take over the Department of Justice’s existing investigations into Trump’s...

The federal judge overseeing former President Trump’s classified documents case granted his request to delay a few deadlines further so prosecutors can evaluate the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Trump’s lawyers on Friday asked Judge Aileen Cannon for permission to file more documents to argue that the former president should be immune from prosecution in the case. In their motion this week, Trump’s team proposed a schedule that extends through early September, meaning a ruling wouldn’t come until at least the fall. On Saturday, Cannon, a Trump appointee, said prosecutors and special counsel Jack Smith had until July 18 to respond...

On Friday, Judge Aileen Cannon, overseeing the Florida-based records prosecution of former president Donald Trump, heard a lawsuit regarding the legitimacy of the appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith. On Sunday, his office provided the response to those complaints. On Monday, the court entertained the oral arguments regarding this issue. Based upon his arguments, even a non-lawyer such as myself can see that the two cases (Florida and Washington, D.C.) are illegitimate. Now we must await Judge Cannon’s opinion.On Sunday evening, Mark Levin announced on Fox News that his Landmark Legal Foundation had filed a brief concerning the validity of...

Shortly after Judge Aileen M. Cannon drew the assignment in June 2023 to oversee former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case, two more experienced colleagues on the federal bench in Florida urged her to pass it up and hand it off to another jurist, according to two people briefed on the conversations.The judges who approached Judge Cannon — including the chief judge in the Southern District of Florida, Cecilia M. Altonaga — each asked her to consider whether it would be better if she were to decline the high-profile case, allowing it to go to another judge, the two...

When Judge Aileen M. Cannon presides over a hearing on Friday in former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case, she will spend the day considering well-trod arguments about an arcane legal issue in an unorthodox manner.It will be the latest example of how her unusual handling of the case has now become business as usual.Over the past several months, Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Mr. Trump in his final days in office, has made a number of decisions that have prompted second-guessing and criticism among legal scholars following the case. Many of her rulings, on a wide array...

The tables have turned. Had everything gone according to plan, Donald Trump would be on trial right now in South Florida for hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago ocean estate after leaving the White House. The politician, still licking his wounds from his New York conviction, would be desperately fighting to stave off a humiliating distinction: becoming the first former president to be branded a two-time felon. Instead, a very different trial of sorts will be underway this Friday at a tiny federal courthouse in the sunny beach city of Fort Pierce—one that will awkwardly put the Department of Justice...

This is a guest post by David W. Fischer, a Maryland and D.C.-based criminal defense attorney and the senior partner at Fischer & Putzi, P.A. Most recently, Fischer defended January 6 defendant Thomas Caldwell, who was acquitted on seditious and other conspiracy charges.Southern Florida has seen its share of hurricanes, but an earthquake may soon hit the Treasure Coast area as a result of Donald Trump’s motion seeking to dismiss his documents indictment based upon Jack Smith’s alleged illegal appointment as Special Counsel. U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon has set aside two full days (Friday and Monday) to hear...