Judge Aileen Cannon is planning to hold a broad hearing on donald trumpto declare Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel invalid, signaling that the judge might be more willing than any other trial judge to veto the special prosecutor’s authority.
The planned hearing also adds a new and unusual twist to the federal national security criminal case against the former president: Cannon said Tuesday that a variety of political supporters and constitutional scholars not otherwise involved in the case may participate in the oral arguments. on June 21st. .
It’s an extraordinary elevation of arguments in a criminal case first filed a year ago this week, which probably won’t see trial until next yearif applicable.
Similar challenges from Trump and other high-profile targets of special counsel investigations have failed from coast to coast in recent years: Hunter Biden’s lawyer has gotten nowhere with judges in Los Angeles and Delaware; Paulo Manafort arguments fell apart when Trump’s former campaign chairman challenged the authority of special counsel Robert Mueller; and Andrew Miller, a former associate of Roger Stone, also lost his challenge to Mueller’s authority.
Even with other federal trial judges allowing special counsel criminal prosecutions, Cannon could rule differently.
Cannon’s sign of willingness to face challenges to the special counsel comes in the same week that Republicans are attacking Attorney General Merrick Garland by the use of special advice.
The issue, now before Cannon in federal court for the Southern District of Florida, will likely remain in the political debate at least until Cannon holds a hearing on the special prosecutor’s legal power to prosecute a defendant on June 21.
Cannon has already taken a drastically different approach than other federal trial judges who have handled criminal cases charged by recent special counsels’ offices — of which there have been five since Trump became president.
While others have moved quickly to trial — including special counsel David Weiss who tried his case against Hunter Biden in Delaware this week, eight months after the indictment — Cannon has moved slowly through pretrial matters for Trump and his two co-defendants. Many of the more substantive legal questions to be decided in the confidential records case, which the Justice Department first brought against Trump last June, are not yet ripe for decision.
And it is highly unusual for a trial federal judge to allow a third-party group unaffiliated with a criminal case to argue in court as part of a defendant’s legal challenges to the case itself. That work is essentially reserved for teams of defendants to present and argue in courtrooms across the country, in front of Department of Justice prosecutors. Allowing third parties to argue in court is still rare in appeal situations.
“The fact that these motions are being considered at a hearing is ridiculous. That third parties can weigh in at the hearing is absurd,” Bradley Moss, a Washington, D.C.-based national security law expert, told CNN.
But Cannon was convinced by three separate groups of lawyers that they should be able to argue before her. Two of those groups support Trump’s position to dismiss the case against him and say the special counsel, for various constitutional reasons, does not have the authority to prosecute. A third group says the Justice Department’s use of a special counsel should be maintained.
Two former Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys general, Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, are part of groups of so-called “friends of the court” who side with Trump and from whom Cannon will hear. The three groups will be able to discuss, in addition to the Justice Department and the defendants’ lawyers, for 30 minutes each, according to court records.
Meese and Mukasey have special insight to share with the judge, they say, given their former leadership roles at the Justice Department.
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