While most of the media attention has been on the Manhattan trial against Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is also facing other court battles being waged by foes on the state and federal level.
One notable example involves the case regarding Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, which was brought to trial by special counsel Jack Smith.
He has engaged in several tactics that Trump and others believe were clearly motivated by politics, but his latest courtroom antics even received a terse denunciation by the judge overseeing the case.
As Newsweek reported:
Florida Judge Aileen Cannon had a stern response for Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith and prosecutors in a filing posted Sunday in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case.
In the filing from the Southern District of Florida’s West Palm Beach Division, Cannon, appointed by Trump in 2020, said she’s “disappointed” that Smith asked her to keep information from the public in order to protect grand jury secrecy and witness safety. She contended that Smith ignored similar concerns at other times during the case.
In Sunday’s five-page order, Cannon “granted in part and denied in part” Smith’s two motions related to sealing and redacting defense filings in the trial into whether Trump mishandled classified documents that he took with him to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving the White House in January 2021.
Cannon states that “nowhere in that explanation is there any basis to conclude that the Special Counsel could not have defended the integrity of his Office while simultaneously preserving the witness-safety and concerns he has repeatedly told the Court, and maintains to this day, are of serious consequence, and which the Court has endeavored with diligence to accommodate in its multiple Orders on sealing/redaction. The Court is disappointed in these developments.”
ADVERTISEMENTThe order continued: “The Court deems it necessary to express concern over the Special Counsel’s treatment of certain sealed materials in this case.”
NEW: In a Sunday order related to the posting of unsealed/unredacted Trump motions in classified docs case, Judge Cannon again takes aim at Special Counsel Jack Smith for his selective demands to keep witness, grand jury materials secret. pic.twitter.com/0R8sJ586Na
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 19, 2024
Smith’s behavior has drawn extensive criticism via social media:
This man clearly views President Trump as a target, as an enemy; and he will stop at nothing to defeat him. Jack Smith is not independent. He is insanely biased, and should be removed https://t.co/4SwU6oycxI
— David Pollack (@ThePollackShow) December 11, 2023
Letter from President Trump's legal team to Special Counsel Jack Smith
Trump's lawyers criticized Smith for failing to disclose evidence tampering until recently, calling it an "extraordinary breach" of constitutional and ethical obligations.
They accused Smith of bias and… pic.twitter.com/fyvh90XM3J
— Jenny (@mommaleo) May 7, 2024
NEW: Jack Smith desperate to prevent the public from learning about the deep bias of DC jury pool. He already asked Judge Chutkan for restrictions on defense jury survey to gauge prejudice of jury pool now wants more rules related to picking, vetting jurors: pic.twitter.com/thiGOdzvxG
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) October 10, 2023
Here’s some additional context about Cannon’s latest ruling, via Law & Crime:
The judge previously told the prosecution and defense to submit proposed redactions consistent with her previous rulings, and she noted that the sides “largely” agreed that witness names and “personal identifying information” should remain shielded from public view. Still, there was disagreement on “whether certain materials” in the Trump motion to suppress “should be redacted on the basis of attorney-client privilege,” the judge said.
Rather than rendering a decision on whether attorney-client privilege applies, Cannon kicked the can down the road and okayed redactions in the meantime, having agreed to “accept for now” Trump’s “characterization of the material as privileged pending merits review of the privilege issues raised in the Motion to Suppress[.]”
Republican lawmakers recently sounded off on the special counsel in a committee hearing, as this video reveals:
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