Aileen Cannon Locks Up the Jack Smith Report For at Least 30 More Days
Aileen Cannon issued her ruling withholding any sharing of Jack Smith’s Volume Two — which she extended to thirty days after all appellate proceedings.
2. Attorney General Garland or his successor(s), the Department of Justice, its officers, agents, officials, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals, are enjoined from (a) releasing, sharing, or transmitting Volume II of the Final Report or any drafts of Volume II outside the Department of Justice, or (b) otherwise releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions in Volume II or in drafts thereof
3. This Order remains in effect pending further Court order, limited as follows. No later than thirty days after full conclusion of all appellate proceedings in this action and/or any continued proceedings in this Court, whichever comes later, the parties shall submit a joint status report advising of their position on this Order, consistent with any remaining Rule 6(e) challenges or other claims or rights concerning Volume II, as permitted by law. Any disagreements between the parties can be denoted separately.
She claims the report — which would only be released in redacted form — includes non-public information (and also revealed that Trump was claiming attorney-client privilege over some of the material).
Volume II includes detailed and voluminous discovery information protected by the Rule 16(d)(1) Protective Order entered in this case [ECF No. 27]. Much of this information has not been made public in Court filings. It includes myriad references to bates-stamped information provided by the Special Counsel in discovery and subject to the protective order, including interview transcripts, search warrant materials, business records, toll records, video footage, various other records obtained pursuant to grand jury subpoena, information as to which President-Elect Trump has asserted the attorney-client privilege in motions in this proceeding [ECF No. 571 (sealed); ECF Nos. 641, 656], potential Rule 404(b) evidence, and other non-public information.
Along the way, she notes that no one from Congress has asked for the report, but that the Democratic members of HJC called for its public release.
12. With respect to the Department’s assertion of congressional interest in Volume II, there has been no subpoena by Congress for review or release of Volume II. There is no record of an official request by members of Congress for in camera review of Volume II as proposed by the Department in this case. There is, however, a recent letter by some of those same members urging Attorney General Garland to release Volume II to the public immediately, even if doing so requires dismissal of the charges as to Defendants Nauta and De Oliveira.10 Finally, although the Department refers generally to “legislative interest” concerning special counsels as a basis to deny Defendants’ Emergency Motion as to Volume II [ECF No. 703 p. 3 n.2], the Department has identified no pending legislation on the subject or any legislative activity that could be aided, even indirectly, by dissemination of Volume II to the four specified members whom the Department believes should review Volume II now.
Note that she ignores Kash Patel’s pending confirmation proceedings.
Cannon also makes a patently false claim — that DOJ has never released Special Counsel information prior to the conclusion of criminal proceedings.
Never before has the Department of Justice, prior to the conclusion of criminal proceedings against a defendant—and absent a litigation-specific reason as appropriate in the case itself— sought to disclose outside the Department a report prepared by a Special Counsel containing substantive and voluminous case information. Until now.
The Mueller Report did that: It included (but redacted) information on both the Prigozhin troll case and the Roger Stone one.
Ah well. I did say that Jamie Raskin would have been better off attempting to intervene personally.
Cannon, having released the order after folks at SDFL quit, now makes much of the fact that no one from SDFL is noticed on this matter.
Update: As a reminder, I posted on some of the stuff that would appear in the report here. It sounds like the report itself has a lot more description of surveillance footage.
I probably watched too much football this weekend. But this has the feel of a fumble recovery, the fumble being committed both by DOJ and the congressional Dems and the mindlessly gleeful recovery by Cannon, with whomever’s coaching her (and I wouldn’t rule out Clarence Thomas in that role).
Will we the public ever see Volume Two? Will relevant congresspersons ever get a glimpse at Ka$h-related portions? Would this even make a difference anymore?
And what was the damage done to our national security, in what areas, and what vulnerabilities proceeded — just on the basis of what’s known, what’s been recovered, and what hasn’t been — ? Is there an accounting of that going to be laid down? Or do we leave the tackling of it to what’s left of Journalism in this country? The absence of that accounting, btw, was an in-kind gift to (and in many ways, from) the Trump Campaign/Betting Parlor/Money Laundry.
Pro Publica could run such an investigation, and may even decide to launch one. I say that, but is it even a possibility? And speaking of them: are they in MAGA crosshairs? Can you imagine an FOIA contest between them and Trump’s State Dept and DOJ? PP’s donor receipts would go through the roof. They’re platform is multi-tiered and -affiliated. Their broadcast range is, well, very broad. It would broaden a lot further if that were to happen.
Is there a reason why there hasn’t been a demand for an accounting of what is known about the damage that Trump’s Document Theft, Mishandling and Disclosure have caused, the harm to the nation’s security and international position? “National security concerns” will be the justification for brushing it off, but national security concerns, without the italics, is what’s at stake if we choose to ignore that part of his criminality.
“…known about the damage that Trump’s Document Theft, Mishandling and Disclosure have caused,…” I am glad to see you call it theft, Mishandling. Mishandling is a euphemism. Theft is accurate.
Well there’s photographic evidence that some of it may well have been used as toilet paper.
IANAL so I wonder how can Cannon claim jurisdiction when she has dismissed the case? Or until the Jack Smith appeal is resolved?
I am a lawyer, but sadly I do not understand CalvinLaw.
It’s Putin law only minus the defenestration (so far).
Isn’t Cannon’s conceit something like this
1 During the proceedings before her she made various protective orders concerning documents, evidence and information placed before the court, preventing disclosure of broad swaths of information and material, including Classified Information etc.
2 The protection of that information pursuant to her orders, and enforcement of such orders continues despite dismissal of the prosecution, so she has a continuing jurisdiction for such purposes, the ambit of which is not precisely defined.
3 She construes the proposed publication of any of that information or material to anyone beyond the immediate parties as potentially infringing her prior orders.
4 If we were to imagine a hypothetical: suppose Nauta, or his counsel took it into their heads to attempt to reveal classified information they had gained through disclosure subject to a protective order in the case. (Say by threatening a tell all book) Notwithstanding any criminal law, Cannon asserts she has some sort of inherent jurisdiction to anticipate and prevent such actions from occurring.
5 I don’t pretend to have delved into this topic of what her inherent jurisdiction might be very deeply. The thing is, we know from the whole search warrant fiasco, that Cannon is clever enough to invent arguments about her own jurisdiction that have sufficient superficial plausibility and contain a morass of technicality purporting to justify her position, that it is very difficult to shut her down, which is the real point for her.
Like Trump, Cannon is making shit up and the 11th Cir. refuses to call her on it.
See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652.714.0.pdf
P2 fn 2
2 Nothing in this Order should be construed as a comment on, or intrusion into, the Eleventh Circuit’s pending review of this Court’s Order Granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Superseding Indictment [ECF No. 672]. 11th Cir. Appeal No. 24-12311. The parties have raised arguments concerning the authority of Special Counsel Smith to prepare or issue Volume II, but the Court has not considered those arguments in deciding
••the Emergency Motion, which concerns a discovery disclosure matter collateral to the appeal.•• (emphasis added)
EOH I don’t disagree at all.
‘Calvin Law’. I learned a new term today; thank you for that, Mr. Walker. God, I miss that strip.
Whatever is going on with the 11th Circuit Appeals Court? IANAL, but Judge Cannon has assumed powers she should not have in a case that is under appeal in the 11th Circuit. What is mystifying is why the Appeals Court (Chief Judge Prior, a by-the-book Judge) has been totally silent and allowed Cannon to do whatever she pleased.
Court decisions that Felon 47 disagrees with will be ignored. Recall that Andrew Jackson’s portrait was moved into the oval office during its first term, and is reportedly back.
“Your institutions will not save you” is a warning that must be understood.
A few years ago I posted a naive question here regarding who might be coaching Cannon on the sidelines. I recall bmaz shut me down, shouting in his usual manner that this was a dumb question. At the time there were lots of comments posted calling for her dismissal based on her nakedly partisan rulings. Bmaz said it’s far more difficult than we thought to dismiss a federal judge.
Fast forward to her current ruling that SC Jack Smith’s 2nd report ain’t gonna see the light of day anytime soon, if ever. Sure would be interesting to know now if there were conflicts of interest involving the felon’s defense team or scotus. That the new DOJ would do anything about it even if such conflicts were proven to be clearly unethical or worse, is…cannon fodder for another pardon.
If only Jack Smith had a thumb drive…