This article has been updated to reflect more detailed information about the usual procedure for assigning cases to judges in the Southern District of Florida.
Prosecutors publicly uncovered a deep and detailed body of evidence against former President Donald J. Trump in Friday’s documentary investigation, but it could also be set back by suddenly assigning the case to Judge Eileen M. Cannon. rice field.
Trump-appointed Florida Judge Cannon, 42, intervened last year in an investigation that ruled in Trump’s favour, shocking legal experts across ideological lines, but in the end. condemned by a conservative court of appeals.
The chief clerk of the Southern District of Florida Court said new cases in the Southern District of Florida will be referred to judges at random, even if they relate to previous cases. It’s not immediately clear whether Trump got lucky or if an exception was made. In any case, legal experts said Judge Cannon’s return was important.
Federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig, a former Bush administration official who was involved in the independent prosecutor’s investigation into President Bill Clinton, said the unsealed indictment provided a “strong statement of fact.” . “If this were an ordinary person and an ordinary case, you would be talking about pleading guilty to your client. I have.”
Now that Trump has been indicted 37 criminal actsIncluding 31 espionage law violations, as well as charges of obstruction and misrepresentation, Judge Cannon may have ample opportunity to make a decision that will affect the tempo and outcome of the case.
First, the substantive evidence contained in the indictment comes from Mr. Trump’s own attorneys, increasing the likelihood of disputes over whether it should be hidden as a matter of attorney-client privilege. ing.
The evidence includes recorded voice memos and eyewitness testimony that shows Trump had his lawyers shut up about having his aide Walt Nauta remove the box from the vault. One of the attorneys, M. Evan Corcoran, then responded to the subpoena by searching the room for classified materials, while another attorney, Christina Bob, signed a statement. It is inaccurate to say that all remaining confidential records are preserved. had been overturned.
Trump and his team behind closed doors fought a fierce battle to prevent the special counsel from obtaining that information. But Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the so-called criminal fraud exception did apply, and allowed a district grand jury to reconsider the exception. .
But those decisions were only those that could be presented to a grand jury. Trump’s legal team can submit new motions to cover up that evidence and keep the information from reaching the jury, and Judge Cannon is not bound by Judge Howell’s ruling.
Decisions made by Judge Cannon in establishing the pretrial and trial calendar may also be significant. Mr. Trump has long pursued a time-out strategy on legal matters, and if he can postpone the documentary trial beyond the 2024 election, Republicans — whether it’s Mr. Trump himself or someone else — will be forced to take action. ), which may result in a lawsuit. Candidate — Become president and end the case.
Because the case involves classified evidence, 31 of the counts against Trump center on espionage law violations involving the unauthorized retention of 31 classified and top-secret documents. are likely to spend a significant amount of time processing pretrial hearings.To give permission Non-Confidential Alternatives.
Samuel Buell, a white-collar criminal law professor at Duke University and former chief prosecutor on the Enron Task Force, said there were “a lot of misdirections and delays and a lot of things that could work well in MAGA’s media space.” Things could happen, but I don’t think so.” Legally, I don’t see how even a judge with a penchant for mischief could stop this from going to court. “
Still, “there could be outrageous rulings here,” he said. ‘ added. As well as delaying this, it becomes very difficult to predict when this will go to court. “
Admittedly, there’s no guarantee Judge Cannon will resume the pattern he laid out last fall. It remains to be seen whether she will use her second turn in the spotlight to rule in a more direct way and respond to the reputational damage it has caused her.
Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University, said the 31 documents central to the espionage law complaint were carefully selected by the special counsel leading the investigation, Jack Smith, and used in negotiations with national security officials. At the end of the day, he said it was likely the choice was made over potential espionage. It will also be presented to legal counsel and possibly juries as appropriate.
One possible question is whether Smith agreed to allow the use of certain documents in hopes of persuading judges not to reveal them in open court. When Trump’s legal team argued that certain documents must be publicly available for a fair trial, the government would base those documents instead if it ruled in his favor. We may consider dropping the charges.
Judge Cannon was born in Cali, Colombia and raised in Miami. Her mother fled Cuba when she was young after the 1959 Communist Revolution, and her father’s family is from Indiana. She graduated from Duke University and the University of Michigan Law School, she served as a conservative federal judge clerk, and has worked for both law firms and federal prosecutors.
She joined the Conservative Federalist Association as a law student in 2005 and was just 39 when Trump nominated her for a federal judge in 2020. Working in a small federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, north of Palm Beach County, she handles a special case surrounding the raid on Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club and residence in Palm Beach. Until then, she received little attention.
Last year, Judge Cannon oversaw a civil lawsuit filed by Trump following the FBI’s search for Mar-a-Lago. seized a number of government documents and other materials stored with them. Among them were 102 files marked as classified, which Trump could not turn over after receiving a subpoena several months ago.
Judge Cannon temporarily blocked investigators’ access to the materials, imposed a special master to scrutinize files that should be permanently banned, and identified some of the White House files as crimes against the Justice Department. He proposed an unprecedented idea that could be hidden under administrative enforcement from investigators. He gave privileges and set a calendar that had no choice but to freeze investigations for at least four months.
Her opinion suggested that former presidents should be better protected than ordinary criminal suspects. She also overruled the order of special judge she appointed, Judge Raymond Deary, when she ordered Trump to certify the accuracy of an FBI inventory seized from a Florida property, and Trump supported.
But the Justice Department appealed, and a panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, including two other Trump-appointed shut down her interference. In a scathing ruling, the commission said he never had legitimate jurisdiction to order a review or bar investigators from using the files, and identified Trump as another search warrant target. He said there was no good reason to treat them differently.supreme court leave the decision without commentJudge Cannon dismissed the case.
Last fall, the reporter sought clarity on whether Judge Cannon’s involvement in the case meant that he would automatically be prosecuted if a lawsuit were filed in the Southern District of Florida. asked. Court General Secretary Angela Noble wrote in her email: “We do not assign related cases to the same judge. Related cases continue to be randomly assigned.”
Still, it was unlikely that the indictment would be randomly assigned to Judge Cannon.
Usually the district assign new case To a judge belonging to either the division in question or an adjacent division. Mar-a-Lago is located in the West Palm Beach neighborhood between Fort Pierce and Fort Lauderdale. Seven sitting judges have courts in these three divisionsas well as three senior executives, who are currently hearing the case.
Ms Noble did not immediately respond to an email requesting an explanation of what had happened.
Trump and his team have already hinted that they intend to file misconduct charges by prosecutors and investigators as well at a Justice Department meeting this month to block prosecution.
Criminal defendants routinely allege that prosecutors have intimidated witnesses and committed other unlawful acts, with little success. But if Judge Cannon treats these allegations with more respect than regular judges, Smith and his team could effectively be tried before Trump.
“A pretrial litigation over the actions of prosecutors is a good cover-up and fits with President Trump’s message of ‘running politically motivated prosecutors out of control,'” Buell said. . “So we are going to see a lot of it.”
