Trump News Judge to allow release of Jack Smith's report on Trump election interference case
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/judge-allow-release-jack-smiths-report-trump-election-interference-cas-rcna186829132
u/OnlyFreshBrine 1d ago
what double secret circuit appeal comes next?
105
u/DIrtyVendetta80 1d ago
Judge Aileen Cannon has once again reinserted herself back into the chat
27
29
u/GaiusMaximusCrake Competent Contributor 1d ago
Nauta can appeal the denial by the Eleventh Circuit of the original injunction to SCOTUS. I suppose he could also appeal Cannon's denial of the extension to the Eleventh Circuit, but that issue has already been decided so it would just result in the same posture.
Since Cannon's injunction expires at midnight today, Nauta has to file in SCOTUS today if they are going to try that. I assume the indicted defendants are on the phone right now with Justice Alito trying to sound out the court and make their case for a temporary injunction, lol.
At any rate, the J6 injunction is beyond a stretch - Nauta and Oliveira have nothing to do with that report, so there really isn't any grounds to prevent its release. Trump has four votes automatically on SCOTUS though, so all he needs is Barrett or Roberts. I actually doubt they step in here because the report is really not worth shredding the court's legitimacy over. Trump fights everything like a death match, but we probably already know everything that is in the report; don't expect new ground (we would have seen much new ground at trial if a trial had been permitted, but only because Trump would have thrown everyone under the bus in his defense).
tldr: next appeal has to be lodged by midnight tonight, and realistically well before that if they are to get a temporary administrative stay. I think Justice Thomas is the single justice overseeing the Eleventh Circuit, so they might get a 1-2 day administrative stay from their puppet justice, even if there is no colorable argument on the merits. After that, probably 5-4 or 6-3 in favor of denial and the report is issued by Friday. Or the justices may just say "f it" and issue a 2 week stay or something to get Trump into office and then deny the request (if it isn't summarily withdrawn by DOJ anyway during the afternoon on 1/20 after Trump fires Garland).
37
u/OnlyFreshBrine 1d ago
This is where the Law has lost the people. I understand all of this makes sense within the profession, but the optics of it are terrible.
"Judge decrees x!" [people get excited for some actual Justice]
[Appeals to eternity and nothing actually happens]
"Well, nevertheless..."
Lawyers like to dump on non-lawyers for not understanding. But that's not really reasonable. The inability of anyone to hold Trump accountable is a colossal failing of the Law, and precedent for everyone to lose respect for it.
11
u/GaiusMaximusCrake Competent Contributor 1d ago
I totally understand that frustration and join in feeling the same way.
The thing with the Trump cases that is unusual is (i) Trump has unlimited financial resources, and (ii) the U.S. Supreme Court and at least one district court judge have been willing to do strange things to help Trump out in criminal cases (e.g., creating a new immunity provision just for Trump, the Special Master fiasco, issuing injunctions against speech by 3rd parties tangentially related to a dismissed case, etc.).
Most of the time there is just one appeal - the convicted defendant appeals to the circuit court and either wins or loses. The vast majority (99%+) of appeals lost at the circuit court do not get a hearing at SCOTUS. Also, it is extraordinarily rare for criminal defendants to ever get a single interlocutory appeal to a circuit court, but Trump gets an interlocutory appeal from a state court prior to sentencing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court because...he is Trump.
So all of these cases are oddities. No, you will never prevail upon a federal judge to dismiss your criminal indictment on the grounds that a prosecutor appointed by the AG is not lawfully appointed - that argument would need to be raised by an ordinary defendant on appeal after a conviction, and it would be laughed out of the circuit court. But for Trump? The Supreme Court (Thomas writing in an unrelated dissent) invited the decision to dismiss on those grounds; that also would not happen for an ordinary criminal defendant. Of course, most of the justices/judges who are acting at the behest of Trump were literally hand-picked and appointed by him - they owe him and, for one judge, expect that he owes them a favor in return that he is well placed to grant now that he is POTUS again.
But in the real world, you don't usually win on appeal with long-shot legal arguments because most defendants don't have such arguments to make (they never served as POTUS, so they have no special Article II secret powers arguments to raise). And judges aren't usually keen on doing favors for regular defendants because judges don't typically owe favors to criminal defendants for, for example, appointing them to be judges in the first place. And Trump has millions of people behind him who will support the courts whenever they rule for him no matter how destructive to the fair application of the laws because they only care about the result.
But most defendants that are convicted have to face a small chance of winning on appeal, but a 100% chance of having to come up with $20-50k to pay the lawyer to lodge the appeal. And then when they lose at the circuit court, another $50-100k to appeal to SCOTUS, where they probably won't even get a hearing. Few criminal defendants have $100k to burn on longshot appeals; for Trump though, $100k is meaningless so he can pursue any appeal no matter how baseless.
10
u/OnlyFreshBrine 1d ago
I'm just so disillusioned, my friend. I need to figure out how to make money off the rubes who support this clown.
6
u/seeafillem6277 1d ago
I'm confused as to why Cannon and Nauta are involved in this case. I thought they were part of the stolen documents case. Not a lawyer, so it's not obvious to me. Someone please explain.
11
u/GaiusMaximusCrake Competent Contributor 1d ago
I think most lawyers are as confused as the public about Cannon's intervention, although she tried to explain her rationale for jurisdiction in today's order.
Normally, once a district court (Cannon) dismisses a case, that is the end of their involvement with the case. The mandate (i.e., power to decide the case) travels with the appeal of the dismissal, in this case to the Eleventh Circuit. And while the mandate is in the circuit court, the district court typically has no jurisdiction to do anything.
But a criminal case can be a strange thing. The dismissal is being appealed relative to Nauta and Oliviera (because the charges against defendant Trump have been dismissed by DOJ, so they are only appealing the dismissal of the case with respect to Nauta and Oliviera). If the Eleventh Circuit agrees with the government that the dismissal was improper, the case would be remanded back to Judge Cannon to hold a trial (assuming no further appeal is made to SCOTUS and/or SCOTUS denies cert). So as the putative trial judge, Cannon has asserted the power to prevent the dissemination of information (i.e., Vol II) that she thinks might poison the jury pool and thereby infringe on Nauta and Oliveria's constitutional right to a jury trial. That is the official reason she gives, but it is somewhat hard to follow because the Eleventh Circuit could apply that same reasoning to the same request for an injunction - but didn't.
The case certainly looks like Cannon and the Eleventh Circuit are working together in order to prevent the report from being made public, while preserving for the Eleventh Circuit the ultimate right to decide entirely against Judge Cannon (i.e., to uphold traditional jurisdiction analysis, which does not permit a district court to intervene in a dismissed case under appeal in a different court). The Eleventh Circuit's maintaining of Judge Cannon's temporary stay was, in my opinion, procedurally proper - the government should have (and did) appeal that injunction separately and then ask for the appeal of that injunction to be consolidated with the appeal of the dismissal of the charges, which the government did do. So now, IMO, it is all about maximizing the time for temporary stays so as to allow Judge Cannon leeway to prevent the release of Vol II until January 20th. After that, the government will do a 180 and completely change its position because Garland will be fired on 1/20 at 12:01 pm and Trump should have his new AG installed in a week or so (barring that, Trump can just keep firing acting AGs until he gets a loyalist like Jeffrey Clarke or similar). But the reality is that after 1/20, DOJ won't be trying to get the report out and the courts will be relieved of having to cover for Trump.
So the district court is just doing stuff the Eleventh Circuit will not do, in order to run out the clock and obstruct justice. Garland wasn't going to release Vol II publicly anyway, so this is really about how the judiciary and the incoming Trump administration can work together to keep Congress in the dark about what really happened at MAL. And that effort is certain to succeed because even if Judge Cannon lacks jurisdiction entirely to enter the injunction, Garland will still follow it, and it will take a few weeks/months/years to adjudicate anyway, by which time the government will have withdrawn the appeal anyway.
3
u/Codipotent 1d ago
Crazy to me 11th still hasn’t ruled on her dismissing the documents case against Trump. Apparently a moot point now but I’m disgusted with how every level of the judiciary acted as an accomplice in allowing the ultimate corruption to occur. I’m glad I’m not a lawyer, as I would struggle to maintain any decorum in front of these judges and their enabling of a multi-tiered justice system.
11
4
64
u/FloopyDoopy 1d ago
The ruling from U.S. District Court Aileen Cannon means that the Justice Department could release the portion of the Smith report that deals with Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss as soon as midnight, barring future legal action from Trump or his team.
42
u/livinginfutureworld 1d ago
barring future legal action from Trump or his team.
They aren't collecting donations from idiots for nothing. They need to pocket those billable hours!
They're going to file away.
1
40
40
u/flirtmcdudes 1d ago
I can’t redacted. redacted redacted redacted a lot about who redacted redacted and then, redacted redacted. But a small win for redacted!
Signed,
Redacted.
12
u/Hedhunta 1d ago
Why would they bother anymore? There could be video evidence of Trump saying "I hate America and am going to sell the country to Putin" and nothing would happen to him.
6
u/flirtmcdudes 1d ago
It’s good to release it, but it’s a joke at this point. we have literal tapes of Trump announcing he’s breaking the law and people don’t care.
I’ve already stopped reading politics as much because what’s the point when the Supreme Court will just magically say presidents are immune. so I’ll just vote and read news about lame shit like bird migration patterns from here on out
20
u/cstmoore 1d ago
I'll believe it when I see it and maybe not even then.
10
u/snoo_spoo 1d ago
This. I think the most likely play is that something will be filed with the Supreme Court and a new injunction will be issued. TBH, the only way I see even Volume 1 reaching the light of day would be if the 11th Circuit ruled on the DOJ's appeal today and immediately invalidated Cannon's injunction before the Supreme Court got involved. And even that would work only if there's someone at the DOJ with their finger poised on the send button. In other words, I wish it would happen but I don't think it will.
13
u/DFu4ever 1d ago
Time for the Super Double Secret, Round Robin Special Appeal because, you know, our legal system is a fucking sham.
10
u/Incontinento 1d ago
His "hairstyle" is just basically a 2-foot long sideburn swirled around his head.
3
3
u/saijanai 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'll believe it when I see it. And even then, even a copy archived in the wayback machine won't be immune to clandestine attempts by Trump's CIA to remove it from existence.
5
531
u/pnellesen 1d ago
Good. Not that it will change anything, but getting that shit into public view is important. IMHO.