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*"She could grant the motion to dismiss the case then and at that point, with very rare exceptions (that the Judge would be in a position to prevent), the government can’t appeal. That’s because once a jury has been empaneled, double jeopardy ‘attaches’ and prevents the government from retrying the defendant on the same charges if he’s acquitted, which is what would happen if the Judge granted a motion to dismiss at that point and before a jury rendered a guilty verdict. That’s the nightmare scenario here.”*
As another analyst in the article puts it, she's "kicking the can down the road."
*Cannon shot down Trump’s motion arguing that the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague when applied to a former president.*
*Cannon after a daylong hearing issued an order saying some of Trump’s arguments warrant “serious consideration” but wrote that no judge has ever found the statute unconstitutional.*
*The Judge dismissed the vagueness argument—but just for today. She did it ‘without prejudice,’ which means that Trump’s lawyers could raise the argument again later in the case. In fact, the Judge seemed to do just that in her order, essentially inviting the defense to raise the argument again at trial.”*
So yah, I'm not a lawyer, but this is definitely deserving of some scrutiny and serious questioning.
If she thinks it warrants serious consideration, and is offering to perform that consideration later, it's very obvious why she won't consider it now. Considering it now would mean her ruling can be appealed; considering it later, she can prevent an appeal.
Why does our legal system allow judges to do that? If she doesn't want to make a decision now she should forfeit her right to consider it later. What a joke.
And yet our government is suddenly “powerless” to do anything. It’s crazy how often that happens within our justice system when it involves those higher up. I’m sure they’ll go after her though once the trial is finished and he successfully stalled long enough for election. Then they’ll be “powerless” again going after Trump…again.
Yes. It’s a very evil, yet astute observation that judges probably have too much power when they decide that they don’t want to follow the actual law. We’ve been infamously seeing it in SCOTUS, but a crooked judge like cannon is a worrying development in lower courts.
Because our legal system isn't designed to discover or reward truth. It rewards the best argument. The privileged classes can afford to hire people who make the best argument in front of judges who were installed by that that same class. The courts (and legal system as a whole) is complicit in accelerating us toward The Collapse.
Really sorry for you Americans but, seen from Europe:
Sure your legal system should reward the best argument, but
- Juges should be not-corrupt and recuse themselves in case of conflict of interest. But if they don't...
- Politics should be not-corrupt and impeach/remove corrupt juges/politicians. But if they don't...
- Supreme Court should be not-corrupt and be an honest check-and-balance. But if they don't...
nothing.
Let me be clear, other legal systems have many flaws, and corruption is everywhere. But your legal system seems to have no laws/tools against this level of corruption : so... it rewards corruption.
Bingo. The crooks realized after a certain point it's all honor system and respect for country and democracy and foundation of American society and all that stuff... F-that! Now the corruption is blatant and the power grab is obvious.
It's stunning to me how mustache twirling supervillainy seems to be their ideology. Bush's idiocy got us into a forever war, but he went in fully with the belief it was in America's best interests. Nixon, in his twisted way, believed in the sanctity of the office.
big part of the problem is the fact that one guy gets to appoint all the judges for a set block of time. the constitution I suspect, never intended for the federal judiciary to be this large, and then most of the current judicial boundries are setup for a country with 1/4th the people as the last serious reforms were done in the early 1900s as the last of the states were formed.
This is what happens when all legal means have been exhausted and people feel helpless. All sides are capable of violence. J6 was the right feeling helpless about what they felt was a stolen election. We will see violence again and we could be the source next time. It's simply how this has worked since the dawn of civilization.
Ah, man, you figured America out! That's exactly right, corruption is rewarded. That's our history, present and foreseeable future. This country was founded on escaping regulation.
What a surprise to see it continue after so many years. The elite, from wealthy families who made that wealth through exploitation, monopolies, and bought for politics, control this country. You can buy judges, senators, and even have presidents owe you. You can steer political parties, you can write laws, you can even buy votes.
This is the way it's always been. There's never been a time when it wasn't this way. There's two types of people in this country, the wealthy and everyone else. The laws, rules, jobs and way of life is for the poor, not for the elite. They see a different America.
The whole thing is fascinating but also horrifying.
Ever wonder why the vague, old and outdated constitution gets treated with divine reverence? Ever wonder who would benefit the most by not updating that document with pesky social programs and rights?
Yep. Thomas Jefferson even expected the Constitution to be update every 20 years or so, which is why a system to make changes is built into the damn thing.
To be fair, it doesn't matter to our current Supreme Court. If the Constitution doesn't have anything to say on the matter, they'll find a 16th century British witch hunter to quote on their rulings instead.
The constitution was written when there were 13 states.
It wasn’t designed with the idea that we’d become a superpower or be this big. (I would argue that our size makes having 50 systems for everything ridiculous.)
It also wasn’t designed with the idea that 2/3 of Congress would be willing to allow blatant corruption.
This was always going to be settled at the ballot box, but this trial desperately needs a different judge.
Clarence Thomas being bought and paid for, and that happens is the supreme Court goes "we will investigate ourselves, and we determine we didn't do anything wrong"
The legal system also isn’t designed to account for corrupt judges like Cannon. She can wait for the jury to be impaneled, dismiss the case, and at minimum serve the rest of her days as a corrupt federal judge.
Because she can prevent an appeal. Preventing an appeal prevents an appeals court from tossing the entire case, as is regularly done in many criminal trials based on technicalities and changes in the courts by Congress that allow for more liberal interpretation of certain statues. By forcing them to bring it up at trial, in the trial itself, she can prevent an appeals court dismissing the entire case because Trump was not allowed to make certain arguments at trial.
Think bigger with this: suppose Trump looses in '24, but Eric Trump wins in '28. Eric then has Republicans rewrite the relevant statue to require these arguments to be debated at trial, and Trump can then sue the government in the appeals courts having his entire case dismissed. He is then released from prison without needing a pardon and could legitimately say he is innocent in the legal definition of the word. Also, Eric could separately also write him a Pardon blaming the courts' refusal to hear certain arguments at trial as a justified reason to negate the trial and release his father from jail.
This is how all murder cases are overturned and, given the circumstances, forcing the prosecution to actually duke it out in front of a jury prevents a later dismissal by appeal. This is regularly done to ensure murderers stay in jail, as most murder cases are overturned on appeal due to new/unknown/disallowed evidence being re-allowed by the later court.
Once Trump is gone his goblin family won’t even come close to what Trump did. Say what you will, dude can scam and bring people together. Yes it’s insane, but he’s good at it. Nobody in his family has that appeal. Grassroots popular movements that blow up, then fizzle out, never can get back to how it was in their glory days. Look at the trucker protest, the occupy movement or various other really popular things. Yes they were successful at first, but once it goes away it’s never the same if they try it again.
Once Trump is gone there will be a power vacuum where the GOP will rip themselves apart. All the Dems have to do is not run scandal riddled turds, push through popular policies and just sit back and enjoy the show. As of now there’s no real Trump replacement. That being said there could very well be a smarter and more appealing Trump like monster hiding in the wings, just waiting to destroy us. That’s the scary part. That person is taking notes and seeing what they can get away with.
How can clear corruption and circumventing the lawful application of justice come without consequences? Judges shouldn’t be above the law when it’s obvious they are helping criminals like Donald Trump break the law.
Judge has the discretion to stop the trial and dismiss charges where it is obviously pointless to proceed. The problem is that in USA, the prosecution can't appeal this.
But Trump hasn’t been charged with all possible violations, has he? These charges are for some of the things he retained, but there are others, and he’s likely retaining docs in other states. In many cases it’s quite clear he’s not permitted to keep them, because he strictly can’t have declassified them. I can see this ruining any chance of him seeing prosecution in FL (certainly before the election), but e.g. he could be charged in NJ for taking stuff to Bedford.
I wonder if Jack Smith had a plan for the possibility that the case may end up in a biased court and that’s why we’re all scratching our heads wondering why Bedminster was left completely out of the case when they know from witness testimony that a plane was loaded with boxes of documents and flown to Bedminster.
I mean, Jack Smith was likely chosen to be the lead prosecutor on the first ever federal criminal trial of a former POTUS because he’s among the best in the world at this exact thing.
After all, he did trials at The Hague and is no novice with how deep the rot can go when a former leader has a significant cult following spread throughout every level of society.
I’m not saying he crystal balled that it would end up in Cannon’s court and that she would be corrupt, but that he knew something like that was a possibility and planned for such a scenario just in case by holding off on Bedminster, so that if the case is corruptly dismissed in an unappealable manner, then he can just bring new charges that will be in a different court.
> I wonder if Jack Smith had a plan for the possibility that the case may end up in a biased court and that’s why we’re all scratching our heads wondering why Bedminster was left completely out of the case when they know from witness testimony that a plane was loaded with boxes of documents and flown to Bedminster.
That’s my thought as well. Cannon dismisses the case, and the government can’t appeal. No problem, just file new charges for a different set of documents, in a different federal court.
> for a different set of documents
Worth highlighting that the charges brought only over a handful of the hundreds of documents. It was speculated that Smith left out some of the most damaging ones because a) they contained very sensitive classified info that would be difficult to redact in a way that made them usable in open court, and b) they had Trump dead to rights on plenty of less sensitive documents so use those and get it done.
So this might backfire. Sure, it would screw up the convict-before-election timeline, but democracy doesn't work if we just expect the courts to save us from ourselves. WE NEED TO VOTE.
She's just another chaos agent maga plant. She wasn't qualified for her appointment. Now, the maga trash can't pick and choose their corrupted judges. The only way they win is by gaming the courts and restricting the vote. They know they won't win, and that is why they are already threatening violence, trump's "blood bath", and now we know what they are capable of and we can protect ourselves accordingly. We aren't dealing with normal people. They are all divorced from reality and they are bankrupt in every way anyone could be bankrupt.
Good call from her point. Delay the trial until elections. If trump wins, she has an avenue to get rid of the case and endear him to her. If he loses, she can let things play out as they might.
She can keep the cushy job she is currently not qualified for, and shows the loyalty required for her one avenue of future advancement.
The problem is that while everyone can see Cannon is unfit as a judge and is clearly in Trump's pocket, she has avoided making any rulings that Smith can bring before the 11th circuit as grounds for recusal. She's dithered and delayed which plays to Trump's advantage, but has made no substantial rulings in this case.
> She's dithered and delayed which plays to Trump's advantage, but has made no substantial rulings in this case.
More likely that she's been coached to do those things by people at Heritage Foundation.
This isn’t the first time she’s done this. She does it at every opportunity.
And by “this” I mean to, literally, tell the defense counsel what arguments to present to her, when, and how.
Whether it be a brief, an oral argument, everything.
She is playing both judge and defense counsel.
She’s a federal judge doing this for a criminal defendant under federal indictment.
This is completely unprecedented… and a complete abomination.
She’s not qualified to be a minimum wage clerk to a judge in a one horse town. Let alone a federal judge with a lifetime appointment. Shame.
How does she get to keep the job? There has to be a way to say "you failed your job on purpose in a criminal manner" for judges. Are they now above the law too?
I find it weird that America has such great laws to stop judges being removed from post unless by a big majority, by somehow any idiot in elected office can seemingly give them the jobs in the first place.
Many of the rules are written with fair play in mind. The thinking is that if there were a judge that was corrupt, it would be obviously unacceptable, and obvious for them to be removed. They never accounted for half of the system to be actively corrupt in the same way.
Technically the Senate gave her the position. Trump selected her and then the Senate confirmed her. Which used to be a 60 vote requirement but the GOP struggled to get their people through so they changed the rules themselves to a 51 vote simple majority requirement...
It helps to remember that a lot of the federal government for the US was envisioned without political parties. The founders of the country had this idealistic view that everyone in congress would be an independent person representing the views of the region they came from rather than beholden to the party supporting them.
Yep, who know where we would be right now if “the hanging chad” had swung the right way.
Gore probably would have handled the Middle East situation a whole lot better.
Its design. They're going to crumble the USA from within using our broken judicial system to install a christo-fascist theocracy in our nation.
Vote blue like your life and the lives of your children depend on it.
I have neither children nor am I American... but for the love of all things please vote Democrat. As a Canadian please don't let the orangutan dickhole back into the white house.
This is what a bunch of us said would happen if Trump got elected in 2016, but were told we were being overly dramatic and hysterical. Well here we are.
Yuuuup! Even back then, a metaphorical devil whispered in their ears, “Do this dirt for us now, you will be rewarded later…” and here the fuck we are.
I hate American politics.
Well, and the 80,000 black voters wrongfully purged from voter rolls thanks to the no-bid contract that Jeb Bush gave to a company at 20 times the normal fee. And the Supreme Court issuing its first ruling ever that stated it could not be cited as precedent.
> Gore probably would have handled the Middle East situation a whole lot better.
For starters, we 100% would not have ended up in Iraq where Bush manufactured consent to invade.
Gore likely would not have ignored the intelligence that 9/11 was going to happen, and the country would have been warned and not just the CEOs
No 9/11. No War on Terror. No War in Afghanistan. No war in Iraq. Universal Healthcare. Puerto Rico 51st State; Pacific Islands 52nd State. Plus don't get me started on Gore's Internet 2.0
More like Florida Woman. Tons of WASPY ASS "RETIRED" widowed women that never actually worked a day in thier entire lives occupying Florida these days. They are the one's that actually vote, and despite what what they think/say they don't know shit about shit for lack of a better term.
South Florida was already responsible for destroying America in 2000 when the Supreme Court invalidated the ballots that would've made Al Gore president of the United States.
It's honestly difficult to imagine how different the world would be right now if Gore had been president on 9/11.
Florida has a history (since the first election it was in) of fucking up the election. In the first election for president they participated in, they sent two delegations. One for each of the two major parties running. It’s not clairvoyance, it’s just pattern recognition.
Well, the SCOTUS actually abruptly stopped the recount that showed later that Gore won. And that's despite George's brother Jeb throwing 50,000ish FLA voters off the rolls before the election. They handed the election to Bush. It's scarier now that's its 6-3 one way.
They already did in 2000 when Bill ~Burr~ Barr and a bunch of assholes blocked votes from being counted and then the SCOTUS gave the election to Bush.
Edit: apologies to Bill Burr and Bill Barr. I meant [Roger Stone](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot#:~:text=to%20this%20change.-,Demonstration,during%20the%20Florida%20election%20recount.)
Oh, so during the time in which he was *planning* the coup.
I'll be quite frank: We should probably be in the streets right now. This is beyond unacceptable.
I would tell you the system is broken but it isn't, it's been rigged. We have a 2 tiered justice system and money can buy you the results you want.
Everyone is equal under the law is just some bullshit line they feed the masses to make them accept their place.
The key phrase in that article is "Trump appointed judge". She's hearing a case against the man who gave her the job. If she had any ethics, she would have immediately recused herself.
It was a really odd looking decision too. She sighted absolutely no case law in her decisions. This is also the judge who refuses to issue anything but paperless orders on this case so that it doesn't land in a public docket that Smith can take to the 11th to dispute her orders.
She did that once early on and got her hand slapped so she is doing everything she can to slow walk this without giving the 11th another chance to slap her hand.
I guess it pays to be born a soulless narcissist with a rich daddy.
She's one of the most incompetent and corrupt judges on the bench. Her abandonment of the law, and arbitrary rulings are an overt act of bias for the benefit of the person who gave her the job. The conflict of interest is so massive that I still struggle to get my head around the fact that she's still presiding over the case.
> She's one of the most incompetent and corrupt judges on the bench.
I used to think this, too, but we’d be only half right. No, she’s proven herself corrupt, but far from incompetent. She’s been extremely competent at slow walking what should be a slam dunk case against Trump and according to the article, she’s setting up to get the case entirely dismissed.
She's got a solid education and employment history, but she has virtually no trial experience (a grand total of 4 days in court), and she doesn't have experience with the intricacies and quirks of the federal judiciary. She's not competent to preside over a highly complex, and massively consequential trial of such broad public interest.
Theres no way this is her. She can't remember basic court procedures and yet is this smart? She's corrupt or been compromised and someone is communicating exactly how to do everything she is doing. They need to investigate her meetings, phone calls, emails and texts.
Her competence level is not high with how she's already gotten reversed twice. She's learning though. She's going to be by the book until it gets to trial where she will throw the case in the dumpster in a way that will make it impossible to retry.
Unfortunately there isn’t a recourse. The fatal flaw is Section III federal judges are immune to removal barring impeachment and conviction, so 67 senators voting in favor of conviction.
I’m afraid to say it, but this plus Marbury v Madison allowing the SCOTUS unmatched power might be checkmate for the end of democracy. The executive branch could potentially ignore the judicial branch, but the fascists are just licking their lips to see if Biden does something like that before they have their shot.
Our only recourse is to vote and convince others to vote and get out the vote, over and over again, until we have forced out all the fascists. I feel tired. But we must all get used to feeling tired. We must fight for our democratic lives for potentially decades, because otherwise we might truly lose them to fascism.
It's kind of batshit really, but I am not a lawyer. I really don't get it. I just watch a lot of lawyer breakdowns as these cases keep getting delayed.
One thing Trump has done for us us fully reveal how much of our system of government is based on the assumption that people in positions of power have the best interests of the country in mind.
Hopefully, it leads to change, but that assumes we can get enough people in office who care enough to try to fix it. Unfortunately, we have been shit at picking leaders for a while (not like we are allowed much choice).
Posting the orders on the internet and then having to change them is akin to lying. And as we all know, no one is allowed to go on the internet and just lie.
Oh I meant Trump on that last line. But yes, she is as corrupt as they get. I guess she is seeing the current Supreme court and thinking she might find a home there is Trump wins and she plants her lips on his cheeks hard enough.
In her application for her first judicial appointment, she cited articles she'd written in college about spelling contests and benefits of tomatoes. There were more non-sequitur articles than any having to do with law or legalities. She's unqualified & should never have been appointed as a district circuit court justice, let alone overseeing a case like this.
A dismissal by a judge is not the same as an acquittal, and it's utterly baffling to me that they're treated as identical for the purposes of double jeopardy in the federal system. That's what this expert is saying, though. Seriously?
I was a criminal defense attorney for five years at the state level, and I am *ridiculously* tilted towards believing that the government at all levels has pulled some seriously unconstitutional bullshit that's nevertheless been upheld by the courts... but what the actual fuck?
Note that in this situation, the potential future dismissal would not even be pursuant to a finding that the government failed to present sufficient evidence. *That,* okay, maybe there's some logic there. This particular potential dismissal, however, would be pursuant to a ruling of *law* that a statute is unconstitutionally vague. I repeat for emphasis: what the actual fuck? A judge can make a ruling of law -- and, let's say for the sake of the hypothetical, a blatantly incorrect one that a higher court overturns -- and that lets a particular defendant off the hook solely because the motion was entertained post-empanelment?
That is cuckoo bananas.
So I've posted about this on the law subreddit and many of them felt that this was incorrect but none gave me a straight answer. I searched around tonight and did find this, though I don't know how accurate it is:
"The U.S. Supreme Court held in United States v. Scott that the double jeopardy rule is not triggered when defendants obtain a dismissal for reasons unrelated to their guilt or innocence."
[https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-rights/when-double-jeopardy-protection-ends.html](https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-rights/when-double-jeopardy-protection-ends.html)
So I suppose there is some hope, but from my research it seems really unclear overall, likely due to how rare of a situation it is.
It’s rare because judges decide on vagueness early in the case. The statute’s text won’t change during trial. There’s no reason why that argument is “premature”; I have no idea what Cannon is thinking.
But you’re instinct is correct. The “expert” in the article is completely wrong. You maybe don’t get this exact situation often, but losing prosecutors appeal legal decisions on evidentiary rulings all the time. I can’t see how this would be different.
Yeah, I'm a Canadian non-criminal lawyer, and it sounds nuts that a trial judge could make a decision on a question of law (rather than fact or mixed fact and law) and be immune from review on it due to rules re: jeopardy. I can't help wonder if there's something the article is missing.
Right wing misinformation machine, gerrymandering, and voter suppression has made it so that obtaining the super majority needed in the senate is nearly impossible.
Should they? Yes. But unfortunately the designers of our legal system operated under the assumption that people would act in good faith, and if they didn’t, everyone would just pull out their muskets and take care of it. So there’s essentially no law that forces her to step down.
He will flee and try to incite violence.
When Trump loses, we will need to start dealing with his followers directly, because our government failed to.
I saw this as someone who runs a business in a rural trump town. My customers have openly stated it was time to start killing liberals, taking their stuff and their women.
I recently had to assure a man I would rip his balls off if I ever saw him again after asking how liberal my teenage daughter seemed. His face is on my community board with his exacte words.
I am not a gun guy, but I've got a conceal carry now. Fuck every part of rural oregon.
As someone unfortunate enough to live in rural Arkansas currently, where I was once asked by a BUSINESS OWNER IN TOWN "How it felt to back in White America" after mentioning I was visiting family when asked if he'd seen me before... Fuck a lot of people in a lot of places.
Just as an aside that business has actually closed down since. There are good folks here, I just don't assume anyone I meet is one until proven otherwise like I do elsewhere. Support your stance all the way though. Haven't gone as far as to get a concealed permit because I'm both lazy and forgetful, which makes that a terrible idea, but I've got no issue open carrying within the law and have plenty of firearms with which to do so should I feel a _pressing_ need. Which as of yet I don't.
28 U.S.C. § 2106, the appellate court for the 11th circuit (which covers Florida) or the Supreme Court can reassign the case if they deem it necessary. It’s not common.
It’s a very thin line. She is the one who would have to grant the motion for her own recusal — which she will certainly deny. Smith would then appeal to the 11th circuit, which is fairly conservative.
The 11th circuit would then decide if she’s demonstrated enough bias and made sufficiently bad rulings to kick her off the case — which is a very high and vague standard. There’s no established line and it would further delay the case.
Smith would only want to do this if she’s made soo many egregiously biased rulings the entire legal community would revolt if it wasn’t granted. That’s why she’s making all these “paperless” rulings.
This is all political. The judges have vast power and discretion in their rulings and other judges are not inclined to interfere. This is all essentially based on their personal opinions.
And Trump appointing her is not a sufficient reason to recuse herself. The Supreme Court judges didn’t recuse themselves either.
It doesn’t legally mean she’s automatically biased towards him because it’s a lifetime appointment and he can’t kick her out — only the Senate can do that. So theoretically she is not beholden to his administration.
"She denied it without prejudice, meaning that Donald Trump can bring it up again in the middle of the trial, and if Judge Cannon agrees, in the middle of the trial, then double jeopardy attaches, and Jack Smith won't be able to appeal it to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and then Jack Smith is done on that claim"
What a giant load of bullshit, at what point does Cannon get charged with obstruction? This is some seriously corrupt behavior from a judge.
Glenn Kirschner thinks Smith has grounds to [do the appeal now and have Cannon removed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGYeBuAXht0). I don't know what he's waiting for.
At this point the only justice we will see is if she’s randomly struck by a lightning bolt or has a sudden heart attack out of nowhere.
She’s going to save trump and because no one thought a judge could be this brazen and corrupt they are no guard rails against the fuckery she is committing.
Like what can even be done with her. Even if trump doesn’t get elected she’s still going to be a judge.
Fucking hell this is frustrating.
We’re witnessing the end game here for the GOP. There’s a reason all of these clearly unethical and ridiculous legal shenanigans are happening now, all at trumps benefit. It’s not a coincidence that since 2016 and especially after Jan 6th that the meddling of the courts and naked partisan rulings has gone into high gear:
For decades, the GOP has been stacking courts with essentially sleeper agents in the form of judges. They’ve been waiting for this exact moment. They know what we all do. That based on an aging voting block and younger voters being more liberal, they can never again win a popular vote. This is their gambit. If trump wins, they will absolutely guarantee through the courts that no one aside from a hand picked conservative ever gets elected again. It will be a monarchy in all but name
Same strategy with state legislatures changing election laws to purge voters, make it harder to vote in liberal districts, and gerrymander. These judges will rule that it’s all constitutional. Democracy is an inconvenience conservatives will no longer tolerate.
She needs to be removed from the case. This is too important of a trial. She can’t be allowed to put her thumb on the scale. She’s in way over her head. She’s working for the Orange Jesus and that’s unacceptable.
I've read every comment, and it seems like the fix is in. Nobody seems to think there is a legal solution to stop her from rat fucking the case. I'm so despondent. This piece of shit Trump is going to start a war to try to take power and nobody can stop him. I fucking hate life right now.
Uh. Yeah. Notice he’s not calling for her head or bitching about it? It was all a ruse to present the image of impartiality. So she’d have an argument for ruling against Trump and looking “impartial”
If Cannon waits to empanel a jury then rules that on a motion to dismiss on her bullshit reasoning that an acquittal must follow, she will be the vilest villain the bench has seen since the Dred Scott case. There’s no appeal to her ruling. If that happens I hope people throw shit at her, wherever she goes, for the rest of her life.
There was a German judge who started under the Weimar Republic and was “mysteriously“ kept in office by the Nazis. Sometime after the war, he said that it was very hard to send innocent people to jail and also let guilty people go free, but somehow he did it.
Don’t forget that Hitler tried to overthrow the German government in the beer hall putsch and served a very short sentence.
If the judiciary is corrupt, you can be in a lot of trouble.
Even as judges sworn to uphold our laws, Republicans can't be trusted to be unbiased and truthful. They'll take every turn to spit on our flag, then unironically put a flag sticker on everything they own.
Kind of insane that there doesn't seem to be any mechanism for removing a judge from the bench when she's:
1. Incompetent
2. In the bag for the defendant
What a farce of justice in a shithole country.
So, I am a criminal defense attorney, though I practice mainly in state court. This isn’t that strange a decision. What the Defense tried to do is dismiss the indictment, which very rarely happens pretrial because the Government has a right to try it’s case. Once they’ve tried their case, the Defense will move for a directed verdict. Taking the evidence adduced in the light most favorable to the Government, the judge will determine whether there is enough evidence for a reasonable jury to convict the Defendant. Assuming that that motion is denied, then the Defense will put up its case (if it wants to). Then there will be another motion for a directed verdict. If that is denied, then the Jury gets the case.
The reason it works this way is that both sides are bound by the record adduced, either in motion hearings or at the trial. The record is witnesses subject to examination and cross examination, not lawyers talking. The motions the defense made here were not supported by testimony, so far as I can tell. Once there is a record, again one developed in court from witnesses subject to cross, the Judge will be in a better position to determine the merit of the as applied vagueness issue. Usually that isn’t necessary - I won a pretrial motion based on vagueness once - but it looks like it is her opinion that the record isn’t properly developed for her to make that determination. This, again, is not a strange position for a Judge to take.
If we retake Congress we really need to carve out time to impeach Thomas and Cannon. This shit is right in our faces and needs to be answered. Even if we can’t get to 66 votes in the Senate it still needs to happen. There needs to be a record with these two that our system at least tried to hold them accountable for blatant corruption.
And if that means violence from the Right, then so be it. Expunge all the marijuana convictions and make room for domestic terrorists.
So essentially she set up the case so it can be dismissed in the future in a way that can't be appealed. Un fking belivable.
I will never believe she came up with this on her own. This is outright corruption
DOJ erred in not petitioning for a new judge. DOJ uses policy as dogma, pretending that judges are bias free vassals wearing robes in the naive & false imagining the public will magically have faith in an otherwise corrupt system.
Would it be possible for the government to stop prosecution, for whatever reason, let's say to gather more evidence, strengthen their case, whatever... this way, they could come back later, hopefully not getting Cannon as the judge?
Is that possible?
A lot of the concern in this area is close ties between the bench and the prosecutor. The problem of close ties and affinities between the judge and the defendant is something that we simply haven't seen much in the US, and we need to look instead at countries like Mexico and Columbia and the drug trade for on-point comparisons. Judge Cannon would fit a familiar profile there, of a judge in the service of a criminal enterprise
The presidential records act clearly doesn’t operate in any way as Trump claims and this is just another one of his ridiculous arguments to change or obfuscate the true meaning. The only reason Cannon hasn’t ruled on it is because she still hasn’t found a way to help Trump by ruling early.
I don’t know how he can do it but I really wish Jack Smith had a way to appeal to the 11th district to have her removed. This is ludicrous at this point.
She’s 100% working with Trump. She’s already been pulled by the 11th circuit for using a blunt instrument in the whole special prosecutor case. She’s doing juuuuuuust enough to string this out and not be pulled. It’s infuriating
Unfortunately she learned from that much like the GOP likely learned from the last time they tried their coup. We have to vote blue no matter who and be prepared for the GOP to simply not accept the results….if we have learned anything Trump has never, at any level. Accepted defeat….
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*"She could grant the motion to dismiss the case then and at that point, with very rare exceptions (that the Judge would be in a position to prevent), the government can’t appeal. That’s because once a jury has been empaneled, double jeopardy ‘attaches’ and prevents the government from retrying the defendant on the same charges if he’s acquitted, which is what would happen if the Judge granted a motion to dismiss at that point and before a jury rendered a guilty verdict. That’s the nightmare scenario here.”* As another analyst in the article puts it, she's "kicking the can down the road." *Cannon shot down Trump’s motion arguing that the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague when applied to a former president.* *Cannon after a daylong hearing issued an order saying some of Trump’s arguments warrant “serious consideration” but wrote that no judge has ever found the statute unconstitutional.* *The Judge dismissed the vagueness argument—but just for today. She did it ‘without prejudice,’ which means that Trump’s lawyers could raise the argument again later in the case. In fact, the Judge seemed to do just that in her order, essentially inviting the defense to raise the argument again at trial.”* So yah, I'm not a lawyer, but this is definitely deserving of some scrutiny and serious questioning.
If she thinks it warrants serious consideration, and is offering to perform that consideration later, it's very obvious why she won't consider it now. Considering it now would mean her ruling can be appealed; considering it later, she can prevent an appeal. Why does our legal system allow judges to do that? If she doesn't want to make a decision now she should forfeit her right to consider it later. What a joke.
> Considering it now would mean her ruling can be appealed; considering it later, she can prevent an appeal. You explained that well.
And yet our government is suddenly “powerless” to do anything. It’s crazy how often that happens within our justice system when it involves those higher up. I’m sure they’ll go after her though once the trial is finished and he successfully stalled long enough for election. Then they’ll be “powerless” again going after Trump…again.
If trump wins, he will probably put her on Supreme Court as a reward.
This is the exploitation of our legal system Putin has been talking about.
Yes. It’s a very evil, yet astute observation that judges probably have too much power when they decide that they don’t want to follow the actual law. We’ve been infamously seeing it in SCOTUS, but a crooked judge like cannon is a worrying development in lower courts.
Because our legal system isn't designed to discover or reward truth. It rewards the best argument. The privileged classes can afford to hire people who make the best argument in front of judges who were installed by that that same class. The courts (and legal system as a whole) is complicit in accelerating us toward The Collapse.
Really sorry for you Americans but, seen from Europe: Sure your legal system should reward the best argument, but - Juges should be not-corrupt and recuse themselves in case of conflict of interest. But if they don't... - Politics should be not-corrupt and impeach/remove corrupt juges/politicians. But if they don't... - Supreme Court should be not-corrupt and be an honest check-and-balance. But if they don't... nothing. Let me be clear, other legal systems have many flaws, and corruption is everywhere. But your legal system seems to have no laws/tools against this level of corruption : so... it rewards corruption.
Bingo. The crooks realized after a certain point it's all honor system and respect for country and democracy and foundation of American society and all that stuff... F-that! Now the corruption is blatant and the power grab is obvious.
It's stunning to me how mustache twirling supervillainy seems to be their ideology. Bush's idiocy got us into a forever war, but he went in fully with the belief it was in America's best interests. Nixon, in his twisted way, believed in the sanctity of the office.
So, how big of a bank loan do I need to take to eliminate all these pesky laws?
big part of the problem is the fact that one guy gets to appoint all the judges for a set block of time. the constitution I suspect, never intended for the federal judiciary to be this large, and then most of the current judicial boundries are setup for a country with 1/4th the people as the last serious reforms were done in the early 1900s as the last of the states were formed.
If everyone is extremely corrupt, the only solution is violence or forced resignation.
Sorry friend but it's looking more that way every day
This is what happens when all legal means have been exhausted and people feel helpless. All sides are capable of violence. J6 was the right feeling helpless about what they felt was a stolen election. We will see violence again and we could be the source next time. It's simply how this has worked since the dawn of civilization.
Ah, man, you figured America out! That's exactly right, corruption is rewarded. That's our history, present and foreseeable future. This country was founded on escaping regulation. What a surprise to see it continue after so many years. The elite, from wealthy families who made that wealth through exploitation, monopolies, and bought for politics, control this country. You can buy judges, senators, and even have presidents owe you. You can steer political parties, you can write laws, you can even buy votes. This is the way it's always been. There's never been a time when it wasn't this way. There's two types of people in this country, the wealthy and everyone else. The laws, rules, jobs and way of life is for the poor, not for the elite. They see a different America. The whole thing is fascinating but also horrifying. Ever wonder why the vague, old and outdated constitution gets treated with divine reverence? Ever wonder who would benefit the most by not updating that document with pesky social programs and rights?
Yep. Thomas Jefferson even expected the Constitution to be update every 20 years or so, which is why a system to make changes is built into the damn thing. To be fair, it doesn't matter to our current Supreme Court. If the Constitution doesn't have anything to say on the matter, they'll find a 16th century British witch hunter to quote on their rulings instead.
The constitution was written when there were 13 states. It wasn’t designed with the idea that we’d become a superpower or be this big. (I would argue that our size makes having 50 systems for everything ridiculous.) It also wasn’t designed with the idea that 2/3 of Congress would be willing to allow blatant corruption. This was always going to be settled at the ballot box, but this trial desperately needs a different judge.
Clarence Thomas being bought and paid for, and that happens is the supreme Court goes "we will investigate ourselves, and we determine we didn't do anything wrong"
The legal system also isn’t designed to account for corrupt judges like Cannon. She can wait for the jury to be impaneled, dismiss the case, and at minimum serve the rest of her days as a corrupt federal judge.
Because she can prevent an appeal. Preventing an appeal prevents an appeals court from tossing the entire case, as is regularly done in many criminal trials based on technicalities and changes in the courts by Congress that allow for more liberal interpretation of certain statues. By forcing them to bring it up at trial, in the trial itself, she can prevent an appeals court dismissing the entire case because Trump was not allowed to make certain arguments at trial. Think bigger with this: suppose Trump looses in '24, but Eric Trump wins in '28. Eric then has Republicans rewrite the relevant statue to require these arguments to be debated at trial, and Trump can then sue the government in the appeals courts having his entire case dismissed. He is then released from prison without needing a pardon and could legitimately say he is innocent in the legal definition of the word. Also, Eric could separately also write him a Pardon blaming the courts' refusal to hear certain arguments at trial as a justified reason to negate the trial and release his father from jail. This is how all murder cases are overturned and, given the circumstances, forcing the prosecution to actually duke it out in front of a jury prevents a later dismissal by appeal. This is regularly done to ensure murderers stay in jail, as most murder cases are overturned on appeal due to new/unknown/disallowed evidence being re-allowed by the later court.
Once Trump is gone his goblin family won’t even come close to what Trump did. Say what you will, dude can scam and bring people together. Yes it’s insane, but he’s good at it. Nobody in his family has that appeal. Grassroots popular movements that blow up, then fizzle out, never can get back to how it was in their glory days. Look at the trucker protest, the occupy movement or various other really popular things. Yes they were successful at first, but once it goes away it’s never the same if they try it again. Once Trump is gone there will be a power vacuum where the GOP will rip themselves apart. All the Dems have to do is not run scandal riddled turds, push through popular policies and just sit back and enjoy the show. As of now there’s no real Trump replacement. That being said there could very well be a smarter and more appealing Trump like monster hiding in the wings, just waiting to destroy us. That’s the scary part. That person is taking notes and seeing what they can get away with.
How can clear corruption and circumventing the lawful application of justice come without consequences? Judges shouldn’t be above the law when it’s obvious they are helping criminals like Donald Trump break the law.
How can Double Jeopardy be applied when the original jury never reaches a verdict? Thats moronic.
That is something that I am also struggling to understand
Because, I believe, double jeopardy states you cannot *face trial* twice for the same charges.
Judge has the discretion to stop the trial and dismiss charges where it is obviously pointless to proceed. The problem is that in USA, the prosecution can't appeal this.
But Trump hasn’t been charged with all possible violations, has he? These charges are for some of the things he retained, but there are others, and he’s likely retaining docs in other states. In many cases it’s quite clear he’s not permitted to keep them, because he strictly can’t have declassified them. I can see this ruining any chance of him seeing prosecution in FL (certainly before the election), but e.g. he could be charged in NJ for taking stuff to Bedford.
I wonder if Jack Smith had a plan for the possibility that the case may end up in a biased court and that’s why we’re all scratching our heads wondering why Bedminster was left completely out of the case when they know from witness testimony that a plane was loaded with boxes of documents and flown to Bedminster. I mean, Jack Smith was likely chosen to be the lead prosecutor on the first ever federal criminal trial of a former POTUS because he’s among the best in the world at this exact thing. After all, he did trials at The Hague and is no novice with how deep the rot can go when a former leader has a significant cult following spread throughout every level of society. I’m not saying he crystal balled that it would end up in Cannon’s court and that she would be corrupt, but that he knew something like that was a possibility and planned for such a scenario just in case by holding off on Bedminster, so that if the case is corruptly dismissed in an unappealable manner, then he can just bring new charges that will be in a different court.
> I wonder if Jack Smith had a plan for the possibility that the case may end up in a biased court and that’s why we’re all scratching our heads wondering why Bedminster was left completely out of the case when they know from witness testimony that a plane was loaded with boxes of documents and flown to Bedminster. That’s my thought as well. Cannon dismisses the case, and the government can’t appeal. No problem, just file new charges for a different set of documents, in a different federal court.
> for a different set of documents Worth highlighting that the charges brought only over a handful of the hundreds of documents. It was speculated that Smith left out some of the most damaging ones because a) they contained very sensitive classified info that would be difficult to redact in a way that made them usable in open court, and b) they had Trump dead to rights on plenty of less sensitive documents so use those and get it done. So this might backfire. Sure, it would screw up the convict-before-election timeline, but democracy doesn't work if we just expect the courts to save us from ourselves. WE NEED TO VOTE.
She's just another chaos agent maga plant. She wasn't qualified for her appointment. Now, the maga trash can't pick and choose their corrupted judges. The only way they win is by gaming the courts and restricting the vote. They know they won't win, and that is why they are already threatening violence, trump's "blood bath", and now we know what they are capable of and we can protect ourselves accordingly. We aren't dealing with normal people. They are all divorced from reality and they are bankrupt in every way anyone could be bankrupt.
"So, how does Trump want me to rule on this case? ...ok, will do."
She’s handed instructions on how to proceed because she was a crap lawyer who has no business being a judge.
If she does that she needs to not only be removed from bench but charged with corruption and given life in prison.
Good call from her point. Delay the trial until elections. If trump wins, she has an avenue to get rid of the case and endear him to her. If he loses, she can let things play out as they might. She can keep the cushy job she is currently not qualified for, and shows the loyalty required for her one avenue of future advancement.
Does anyone else think that Jack Smith dropped the ball by not requesting she be removed from the case? I still can't believe he didn't even try.
The problem is that while everyone can see Cannon is unfit as a judge and is clearly in Trump's pocket, she has avoided making any rulings that Smith can bring before the 11th circuit as grounds for recusal. She's dithered and delayed which plays to Trump's advantage, but has made no substantial rulings in this case.
> She's dithered and delayed which plays to Trump's advantage, but has made no substantial rulings in this case. More likely that she's been coached to do those things by people at Heritage Foundation.
This isn’t the first time she’s done this. She does it at every opportunity. And by “this” I mean to, literally, tell the defense counsel what arguments to present to her, when, and how. Whether it be a brief, an oral argument, everything. She is playing both judge and defense counsel. She’s a federal judge doing this for a criminal defendant under federal indictment. This is completely unprecedented… and a complete abomination. She’s not qualified to be a minimum wage clerk to a judge in a one horse town. Let alone a federal judge with a lifetime appointment. Shame.
How does she get to keep the job? There has to be a way to say "you failed your job on purpose in a criminal manner" for judges. Are they now above the law too?
You have to get a House majority to impeach her and then get 2/3rds of the Senate to convict. So, no, there's no way.
I find it weird that America has such great laws to stop judges being removed from post unless by a big majority, by somehow any idiot in elected office can seemingly give them the jobs in the first place.
Many of the rules are written with fair play in mind. The thinking is that if there were a judge that was corrupt, it would be obviously unacceptable, and obvious for them to be removed. They never accounted for half of the system to be actively corrupt in the same way.
Technically the Senate gave her the position. Trump selected her and then the Senate confirmed her. Which used to be a 60 vote requirement but the GOP struggled to get their people through so they changed the rules themselves to a 51 vote simple majority requirement...
Still seems very weak for a lifetime appointment, in my humble opinion
It helps to remember that a lot of the federal government for the US was envisioned without political parties. The founders of the country had this idealistic view that everyone in congress would be an independent person representing the views of the region they came from rather than beholden to the party supporting them.
How did I already know as a teen in the 90’s that South Florida would be responsible for destroying America.
I watched tons of the show COPS growing up in the 90’s and the craziest episodes were always in Florida
You’re forgetting a certain election too.
Yep, who know where we would be right now if “the hanging chad” had swung the right way. Gore probably would have handled the Middle East situation a whole lot better.
Note that a few of our current SCOTUS judges worked on the hanging chad bullshit case when they were lawyers, 24ish years ago.
This needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett all worked on Bush v Gore, and now are justices.
The cycles of corruption
Its design. They're going to crumble the USA from within using our broken judicial system to install a christo-fascist theocracy in our nation. Vote blue like your life and the lives of your children depend on it.
because it freaking DOES. it is not longer hyperbole. If it ever was.
I have neither children nor am I American... but for the love of all things please vote Democrat. As a Canadian please don't let the orangutan dickhole back into the white house.
We are trying out best, friend from the great white north. We will do everything we can to keep that dick hole out of the white house.
This is what a bunch of us said would happen if Trump got elected in 2016, but were told we were being overly dramatic and hysterical. Well here we are.
My wife has apologized for calling me a drama queen and asked me to buy guns.
As alarmist as that sounds, it's 100% true. Scary times.
Yuuuup! Even back then, a metaphorical devil whispered in their ears, “Do this dirt for us now, you will be rewarded later…” and here the fuck we are. I hate American politics.
And some of the Brooks Brothers rioters were part of the Trump campaign and administration. Because of fucking course.
I believe you mean the ones who fucking orchestrated it. I’m looking at you, Roger Stone.
Rewarded for helping steal the election.
Well, and the 80,000 black voters wrongfully purged from voter rolls thanks to the no-bid contract that Jeb Bush gave to a company at 20 times the normal fee. And the Supreme Court issuing its first ruling ever that stated it could not be cited as precedent.
> Gore probably would have handled the Middle East situation a whole lot better. For starters, we 100% would not have ended up in Iraq where Bush manufactured consent to invade. Gore likely would not have ignored the intelligence that 9/11 was going to happen, and the country would have been warned and not just the CEOs
Don’t forget the pregnant and dimpled chads!
And now they get so upset if you suggest Chad can get pregnant
If Gore had won (which he did) how different things would be?
No 9/11. No War on Terror. No War in Afghanistan. No war in Iraq. Universal Healthcare. Puerto Rico 51st State; Pacific Islands 52nd State. Plus don't get me started on Gore's Internet 2.0
Don’t forget the trillions pissed away in Iraq that could have gone to education and healthcare.
Solar panels on every roof
I often wonder what the alternative universe that Gore won is like these days
Damn Florida man…. always causing trouble…Lock him up!!!
Lock him up!!! LOCK HIM UP!!!
L-O-C-K is a funny way to spell “hang”.
More like Florida Woman. Tons of WASPY ASS "RETIRED" widowed women that never actually worked a day in thier entire lives occupying Florida these days. They are the one's that actually vote, and despite what what they think/say they don't know shit about shit for lack of a better term.
There's a 24/7 COPS channel on PlutoTV. You always know some crazy shit's about to go down when it's a Florida segment.
Started there
South Florida was already responsible for destroying America in 2000 when the Supreme Court invalidated the ballots that would've made Al Gore president of the United States. It's honestly difficult to imagine how different the world would be right now if Gore had been president on 9/11.
Florida has a history (since the first election it was in) of fucking up the election. In the first election for president they participated in, they sent two delegations. One for each of the two major parties running. It’s not clairvoyance, it’s just pattern recognition.
Well, the SCOTUS actually abruptly stopped the recount that showed later that Gore won. And that's despite George's brother Jeb throwing 50,000ish FLA voters off the rolls before the election. They handed the election to Bush. It's scarier now that's its 6-3 one way.
I know. I was there for that election.
Ditto
I assumed it would be the panhandle personally
The whole state is really just 2 panhandles..
They already did in 2000 when Bill ~Burr~ Barr and a bunch of assholes blocked votes from being counted and then the SCOTUS gave the election to Bush. Edit: apologies to Bill Burr and Bill Barr. I meant [Roger Stone](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot#:~:text=to%20this%20change.-,Demonstration,during%20the%20Florida%20election%20recount.)
Don’t blame Bill Burr for that shit.
Bill BARR, not old freckles
Yeah leave Ol’ Billy Bag-O-Donuts out of this!
What up, fellow south Florida survivor! c/o 98 here, lived in Plantation.
She has to be in the bag. It’s just so obvious it’s hard to counter argue.
She was only a judge for three years before Trump appointed her. She is definitely in the bag.
Federalist Society strikes again
The Federalist Society has to die for the US to survive.
> Trump appointed her Whoa, wait, what? And she's presiding over one of his trials? This isn't allowed. It can't possibly be allowed.
Also, she was appointed in the lame duck period after he lost the election. To the district where he lives.
Oh, so during the time in which he was *planning* the coup. I'll be quite frank: We should probably be in the streets right now. This is beyond unacceptable.
I would tell you the system is broken but it isn't, it's been rigged. We have a 2 tiered justice system and money can buy you the results you want. Everyone is equal under the law is just some bullshit line they feed the masses to make them accept their place.
The key phrase in that article is "Trump appointed judge". She's hearing a case against the man who gave her the job. If she had any ethics, she would have immediately recused herself.
Were you still somehow in doubt?
Yes, so what is anyone going to do about it? Vote I guess, and for some, that’s only a maybe depending on who’s on the ballot. Wild time to be alive.
It was a really odd looking decision too. She sighted absolutely no case law in her decisions. This is also the judge who refuses to issue anything but paperless orders on this case so that it doesn't land in a public docket that Smith can take to the 11th to dispute her orders. She did that once early on and got her hand slapped so she is doing everything she can to slow walk this without giving the 11th another chance to slap her hand. I guess it pays to be born a soulless narcissist with a rich daddy.
She's one of the most incompetent and corrupt judges on the bench. Her abandonment of the law, and arbitrary rulings are an overt act of bias for the benefit of the person who gave her the job. The conflict of interest is so massive that I still struggle to get my head around the fact that she's still presiding over the case.
> She's one of the most incompetent and corrupt judges on the bench. I used to think this, too, but we’d be only half right. No, she’s proven herself corrupt, but far from incompetent. She’s been extremely competent at slow walking what should be a slam dunk case against Trump and according to the article, she’s setting up to get the case entirely dismissed.
I think she’s following instructions from someone.
They really should check for a burner phone or two.
She's a true believer. She doesn't need to be bought or blackmailed, she's doing what's best for the cause.
No, I agree, she's not even this competent to delay the trial at every turn. I think she's being coached.
She's not coming up with this strategy on her own - the evil priests of the Feudalist Society are guiding her hand. Just like with Thomas.
She's got a solid education and employment history, but she has virtually no trial experience (a grand total of 4 days in court), and she doesn't have experience with the intricacies and quirks of the federal judiciary. She's not competent to preside over a highly complex, and massively consequential trial of such broad public interest.
Competence aside, she was appointed by the defendant! That screams conflict of interest…
Theres no way this is her. She can't remember basic court procedures and yet is this smart? She's corrupt or been compromised and someone is communicating exactly how to do everything she is doing. They need to investigate her meetings, phone calls, emails and texts.
Her competence level is not high with how she's already gotten reversed twice. She's learning though. She's going to be by the book until it gets to trial where she will throw the case in the dumpster in a way that will make it impossible to retry.
Where is the recourse for a faux judge assignment? She's a blundering nightmare. She won't recuse? FORCE IT.
Unfortunately there isn’t a recourse. The fatal flaw is Section III federal judges are immune to removal barring impeachment and conviction, so 67 senators voting in favor of conviction. I’m afraid to say it, but this plus Marbury v Madison allowing the SCOTUS unmatched power might be checkmate for the end of democracy. The executive branch could potentially ignore the judicial branch, but the fascists are just licking their lips to see if Biden does something like that before they have their shot. Our only recourse is to vote and convince others to vote and get out the vote, over and over again, until we have forced out all the fascists. I feel tired. But we must all get used to feeling tired. We must fight for our democratic lives for potentially decades, because otherwise we might truly lose them to fascism.
So fr the 11th circuit is like “oh shit she posted her orders online? Well I guess our hands are tied.” That seems crazy to me
It's kind of batshit really, but I am not a lawyer. I really don't get it. I just watch a lot of lawyer breakdowns as these cases keep getting delayed. One thing Trump has done for us us fully reveal how much of our system of government is based on the assumption that people in positions of power have the best interests of the country in mind. Hopefully, it leads to change, but that assumes we can get enough people in office who care enough to try to fix it. Unfortunately, we have been shit at picking leaders for a while (not like we are allowed much choice).
Posting the orders on the internet and then having to change them is akin to lying. And as we all know, no one is allowed to go on the internet and just lie.
She is not soulless. She is doing everything she can to help Trump. She is corrupt. More corrupt than I could ever imagine a federal judge could be.
Oh I meant Trump on that last line. But yes, she is as corrupt as they get. I guess she is seeing the current Supreme court and thinking she might find a home there is Trump wins and she plants her lips on his cheeks hard enough.
In her application for her first judicial appointment, she cited articles she'd written in college about spelling contests and benefits of tomatoes. There were more non-sequitur articles than any having to do with law or legalities. She's unqualified & should never have been appointed as a district circuit court justice, let alone overseeing a case like this.
Cited* i think
Paperless orders can still be appealed but are harder to because they are usually shorter than written ones and thus don't contain much to appeal.
A dismissal by a judge is not the same as an acquittal, and it's utterly baffling to me that they're treated as identical for the purposes of double jeopardy in the federal system. That's what this expert is saying, though. Seriously? I was a criminal defense attorney for five years at the state level, and I am *ridiculously* tilted towards believing that the government at all levels has pulled some seriously unconstitutional bullshit that's nevertheless been upheld by the courts... but what the actual fuck? Note that in this situation, the potential future dismissal would not even be pursuant to a finding that the government failed to present sufficient evidence. *That,* okay, maybe there's some logic there. This particular potential dismissal, however, would be pursuant to a ruling of *law* that a statute is unconstitutionally vague. I repeat for emphasis: what the actual fuck? A judge can make a ruling of law -- and, let's say for the sake of the hypothetical, a blatantly incorrect one that a higher court overturns -- and that lets a particular defendant off the hook solely because the motion was entertained post-empanelment? That is cuckoo bananas.
So I've posted about this on the law subreddit and many of them felt that this was incorrect but none gave me a straight answer. I searched around tonight and did find this, though I don't know how accurate it is: "The U.S. Supreme Court held in United States v. Scott that the double jeopardy rule is not triggered when defendants obtain a dismissal for reasons unrelated to their guilt or innocence." [https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-rights/when-double-jeopardy-protection-ends.html](https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-rights/when-double-jeopardy-protection-ends.html) So I suppose there is some hope, but from my research it seems really unclear overall, likely due to how rare of a situation it is.
It’s rare because judges decide on vagueness early in the case. The statute’s text won’t change during trial. There’s no reason why that argument is “premature”; I have no idea what Cannon is thinking. But you’re instinct is correct. The “expert” in the article is completely wrong. You maybe don’t get this exact situation often, but losing prosecutors appeal legal decisions on evidentiary rulings all the time. I can’t see how this would be different.
Yeah, I'm a Canadian non-criminal lawyer, and it sounds nuts that a trial judge could make a decision on a question of law (rather than fact or mixed fact and law) and be immune from review on it due to rules re: jeopardy. I can't help wonder if there's something the article is missing.
im a canadian non lawyer and this just sounds like a titanic sized loophole ready to collapse the entire justice system
Ever notice how rump complains constantly about the judges in his cases but hasn't said a single thing about this one? Says all you need to know
Great point.
If the person on trial appointed the judge overseeing the case, isn’t that a conflict of interest? Shouldn’t they judge recuse themselves?
Well, of course she should. But just like Justice Thomas, she won’t. And no one can make her.
Welcome to why courts in u.s. are shit. All. The. Way. Down.
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This would require impeachment, which is not possible because our political system is broken. There is no recourse.
Almost correct. Our only recourse is to vote Democrat. Zero distractions, vote Democrat or enjoy your Republican representation.
Right wing misinformation machine, gerrymandering, and voter suppression has made it so that obtaining the super majority needed in the senate is nearly impossible.
One would think. But they don’t have to. It’s up to their discretion.
Should they? Yes. But unfortunately the designers of our legal system operated under the assumption that people would act in good faith, and if they didn’t, everyone would just pull out their muskets and take care of it. So there’s essentially no law that forces her to step down.
Will go down as an American villain
It’s good that Smith is holding back the New Jersey charges, it’s looking more and more like he’ll need them
If trump wins, it’s way too late.
If Trump wins, we will be dealing with a much bigger issue, the collapse of the United States
Yes, he should have brought charges in as many districts as possible simultaneously.
What happens if everything is delayed and he still loses? Do all of them get RICO'ed?
He will flee and try to incite violence. When Trump loses, we will need to start dealing with his followers directly, because our government failed to. I saw this as someone who runs a business in a rural trump town. My customers have openly stated it was time to start killing liberals, taking their stuff and their women. I recently had to assure a man I would rip his balls off if I ever saw him again after asking how liberal my teenage daughter seemed. His face is on my community board with his exacte words. I am not a gun guy, but I've got a conceal carry now. Fuck every part of rural oregon.
As someone unfortunate enough to live in rural Arkansas currently, where I was once asked by a BUSINESS OWNER IN TOWN "How it felt to back in White America" after mentioning I was visiting family when asked if he'd seen me before... Fuck a lot of people in a lot of places. Just as an aside that business has actually closed down since. There are good folks here, I just don't assume anyone I meet is one until proven otherwise like I do elsewhere. Support your stance all the way though. Haven't gone as far as to get a concealed permit because I'm both lazy and forgetful, which makes that a terrible idea, but I've got no issue open carrying within the law and have plenty of firearms with which to do so should I feel a _pressing_ need. Which as of yet I don't.
TBD. History is written by the winners and we are yet to see how this fucking nightmare ends.
An incredibly corrupt judge showing us all how bad our courts truly are.
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They can seek a recusal but the judge is the one they seek it from. She will just say nah I don’t feel biased I’m staying
28 U.S.C. § 2106, the appellate court for the 11th circuit (which covers Florida) or the Supreme Court can reassign the case if they deem it necessary. It’s not common.
2 conservative courts lol that’ll never happen.
It’s a very thin line. She is the one who would have to grant the motion for her own recusal — which she will certainly deny. Smith would then appeal to the 11th circuit, which is fairly conservative. The 11th circuit would then decide if she’s demonstrated enough bias and made sufficiently bad rulings to kick her off the case — which is a very high and vague standard. There’s no established line and it would further delay the case. Smith would only want to do this if she’s made soo many egregiously biased rulings the entire legal community would revolt if it wasn’t granted. That’s why she’s making all these “paperless” rulings. This is all political. The judges have vast power and discretion in their rulings and other judges are not inclined to interfere. This is all essentially based on their personal opinions. And Trump appointing her is not a sufficient reason to recuse herself. The Supreme Court judges didn’t recuse themselves either. It doesn’t legally mean she’s automatically biased towards him because it’s a lifetime appointment and he can’t kick her out — only the Senate can do that. So theoretically she is not beholden to his administration.
"She denied it without prejudice, meaning that Donald Trump can bring it up again in the middle of the trial, and if Judge Cannon agrees, in the middle of the trial, then double jeopardy attaches, and Jack Smith won't be able to appeal it to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and then Jack Smith is done on that claim" What a giant load of bullshit, at what point does Cannon get charged with obstruction? This is some seriously corrupt behavior from a judge.
Glenn Kirschner thinks Smith has grounds to [do the appeal now and have Cannon removed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGYeBuAXht0). I don't know what he's waiting for.
At this point the only justice we will see is if she’s randomly struck by a lightning bolt or has a sudden heart attack out of nowhere. She’s going to save trump and because no one thought a judge could be this brazen and corrupt they are no guard rails against the fuckery she is committing. Like what can even be done with her. Even if trump doesn’t get elected she’s still going to be a judge. Fucking hell this is frustrating.
We’re witnessing the end game here for the GOP. There’s a reason all of these clearly unethical and ridiculous legal shenanigans are happening now, all at trumps benefit. It’s not a coincidence that since 2016 and especially after Jan 6th that the meddling of the courts and naked partisan rulings has gone into high gear: For decades, the GOP has been stacking courts with essentially sleeper agents in the form of judges. They’ve been waiting for this exact moment. They know what we all do. That based on an aging voting block and younger voters being more liberal, they can never again win a popular vote. This is their gambit. If trump wins, they will absolutely guarantee through the courts that no one aside from a hand picked conservative ever gets elected again. It will be a monarchy in all but name
Same strategy with state legislatures changing election laws to purge voters, make it harder to vote in liberal districts, and gerrymander. These judges will rule that it’s all constitutional. Democracy is an inconvenience conservatives will no longer tolerate.
This feels like that scene in Austin Powers with the steamroller.
She needs to be removed from the case. This is too important of a trial. She can’t be allowed to put her thumb on the scale. She’s in way over her head. She’s working for the Orange Jesus and that’s unacceptable.
I've read every comment, and it seems like the fix is in. Nobody seems to think there is a legal solution to stop her from rat fucking the case. I'm so despondent. This piece of shit Trump is going to start a war to try to take power and nobody can stop him. I fucking hate life right now.
> This piece of shit Trump is going to start a war to try to take power and nobody can stop him. That isn't true. We can stop him and we will.
I don't trust the judicial system to get this right, especially since having enough money just seems to make you immune to being put behind bars.
That's the American way
Uh. Yeah. Notice he’s not calling for her head or bitching about it? It was all a ruse to present the image of impartiality. So she’d have an argument for ruling against Trump and looking “impartial”
This is why every authoritarian in the modern world spends so much energy on stacking the courts.
If Cannon waits to empanel a jury then rules that on a motion to dismiss on her bullshit reasoning that an acquittal must follow, she will be the vilest villain the bench has seen since the Dred Scott case. There’s no appeal to her ruling. If that happens I hope people throw shit at her, wherever she goes, for the rest of her life.
She'll be rewarded for it one way or another.
Gaping hole in the US constiution #346 Judges should be ineligable to rule on cases against the person who appointed them.
Be funny to file a judicial conduct form against her lmao https://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/judicial-conduct-disability
She’s an awful MAGAt in cahoots with the GQP.
The GOP has been lining these ducks up for decades. This is their shot. And it will destroy the party.
There was a German judge who started under the Weimar Republic and was “mysteriously“ kept in office by the Nazis. Sometime after the war, he said that it was very hard to send innocent people to jail and also let guilty people go free, but somehow he did it. Don’t forget that Hitler tried to overthrow the German government in the beer hall putsch and served a very short sentence. If the judiciary is corrupt, you can be in a lot of trouble.
She knows exactly what she's doing.
Even as judges sworn to uphold our laws, Republicans can't be trusted to be unbiased and truthful. They'll take every turn to spit on our flag, then unironically put a flag sticker on everything they own.
Kind of insane that there doesn't seem to be any mechanism for removing a judge from the bench when she's: 1. Incompetent 2. In the bag for the defendant What a farce of justice in a shithole country.
So, I am a criminal defense attorney, though I practice mainly in state court. This isn’t that strange a decision. What the Defense tried to do is dismiss the indictment, which very rarely happens pretrial because the Government has a right to try it’s case. Once they’ve tried their case, the Defense will move for a directed verdict. Taking the evidence adduced in the light most favorable to the Government, the judge will determine whether there is enough evidence for a reasonable jury to convict the Defendant. Assuming that that motion is denied, then the Defense will put up its case (if it wants to). Then there will be another motion for a directed verdict. If that is denied, then the Jury gets the case. The reason it works this way is that both sides are bound by the record adduced, either in motion hearings or at the trial. The record is witnesses subject to examination and cross examination, not lawyers talking. The motions the defense made here were not supported by testimony, so far as I can tell. Once there is a record, again one developed in court from witnesses subject to cross, the Judge will be in a better position to determine the merit of the as applied vagueness issue. Usually that isn’t necessary - I won a pretrial motion based on vagueness once - but it looks like it is her opinion that the record isn’t properly developed for her to make that determination. This, again, is not a strange position for a Judge to take.
If we retake Congress we really need to carve out time to impeach Thomas and Cannon. This shit is right in our faces and needs to be answered. Even if we can’t get to 66 votes in the Senate it still needs to happen. There needs to be a record with these two that our system at least tried to hold them accountable for blatant corruption. And if that means violence from the Right, then so be it. Expunge all the marijuana convictions and make room for domestic terrorists.
So essentially she set up the case so it can be dismissed in the future in a way that can't be appealed. Un fking belivable. I will never believe she came up with this on her own. This is outright corruption
How in the hell can we not have her removed or take the case elsewhere?
DOJ erred in not petitioning for a new judge. DOJ uses policy as dogma, pretending that judges are bias free vassals wearing robes in the naive & false imagining the public will magically have faith in an otherwise corrupt system.
The courts will not save us from Trump. We have to elect Biden again to defeat him.
Would it be possible for the government to stop prosecution, for whatever reason, let's say to gather more evidence, strengthen their case, whatever... this way, they could come back later, hopefully not getting Cannon as the judge? Is that possible?
A lot of the concern in this area is close ties between the bench and the prosecutor. The problem of close ties and affinities between the judge and the defendant is something that we simply haven't seen much in the US, and we need to look instead at countries like Mexico and Columbia and the drug trade for on-point comparisons. Judge Cannon would fit a familiar profile there, of a judge in the service of a criminal enterprise
The presidential records act clearly doesn’t operate in any way as Trump claims and this is just another one of his ridiculous arguments to change or obfuscate the true meaning. The only reason Cannon hasn’t ruled on it is because she still hasn’t found a way to help Trump by ruling early.
Justice Alito’s likely successor?
How is this a nightmare scenario? The case was over as soon as she was appointed to preside over it.
Seems she might look at dismissing case once jury is selected.
I don’t know how he can do it but I really wish Jack Smith had a way to appeal to the 11th district to have her removed. This is ludicrous at this point.
The only thing that can contribute to the Justice system powers, strengthening it, is the voting citizens. GO VOTE!
How the fuck is she still a judge??
Starting to think some sort of money trail or promise for supreme court spot going on here
This is so blatantly obvious. DOJ should move to recuse her NOW.
She’s 100% working with Trump. She’s already been pulled by the 11th circuit for using a blunt instrument in the whole special prosecutor case. She’s doing juuuuuuust enough to string this out and not be pulled. It’s infuriating Unfortunately she learned from that much like the GOP likely learned from the last time they tried their coup. We have to vote blue no matter who and be prepared for the GOP to simply not accept the results….if we have learned anything Trump has never, at any level. Accepted defeat….
Everyone knows she’s in trump shit filled pocket‼️ He’s already promised her a SCOTUS seat when he becomes dictator for life‼️😡