The judge in charge of the former president Donald Trump‘s Classified Documents case may have done just enough to avoid being removed from the case.
That’s the assessment of legal observers after U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, reversed course Tuesday, acknowledging that special counsel Jack Smith had been right and that there was no indeed no public right to know, at this stage, the identity of the people. who could testify against the former president.
“(T)he bottom line is this,” Cannon wrote in a 24-page order: The “truest” reading of the statute and precedent suggests that “this matter is not subject to a right of public access » because it is still in progress. the discovery phase. In other words, Trump won’t be armed with the names of potentially two dozen government witnesses, which means he’ll have to find other material for Truth Social.
This is a marked reversal from two months ago.
Last February, Cannon sided with Trump’s lawyers (and a group of media organizations) in ruling that a “strong presumption in favor of public access” required unsealing documents that might to exclude witnesses in the case. She explicitly dismissed concerns about “witness safety and intimidation,” arguing that the special prosecutor had failed to substantiate fears that the former president and his allies would do what they did in almost all legal proceedings.
While the move did not immediately force the disclosure of this information, it may have prompted one witness, Brian Butler, a former Mar-a-Lago employee, to come forward on his own terms. “I think the American people have a right to know the facts, that this is not a witch hunt,” he told CNN, suggesting he had personally witnessed efforts to cover up Trump’s mishandling of classified national security information.
Others believed that no witnesses would actually be revealed because, before that happened, Cannon herself would be removed from the case.
Writing for Slate, Norm Eisen, a former special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, and Joshua Kolb, a former law clerk to the Senate Judiciary Committee, argued that Cannon’s decision in February likely sealed his fate. They predicted that the special prosecutor would ultimately appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit — and argued that he would have ample reason to demand his dismissal.
“This is a measure that is justified only in rare circumstances, including when a judge has made a ‘manifest error’ that has led to ‘manifest injustice,’” they wrote. “In this case, at Trump’s request, Cannon decided to disclose the identities of two dozen potential witnesses, as well as the sensitive information they provided to the government,” they continued, agreeing with the lawyer special Jack Smith that the decision was based on a “striking argument.” “erroneous reading of the case law.
By backing down — and preventing Smith from potentially using the witness question to argue that she lacked the competence and impartiality to oversee a trial — Cannon might well have saved her job.
“She had nowhere to go,” former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman posted on X. “Smith had made her dead for following Trump’s playbook (and violating the (11th Circuit) law), so it was that or some appeal.”
Some legal observers have suggested that this was the game all along: dragging out a decision on Smith’s motion to reconsider his February order, only to agree with the special counsel but only after a delay of two months – and give him just enough to prevent an appeal.
“We saw her do this many times,” said former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance. written the, highlighting Cannon’s familiarity with the appeals process as a former federal prosecutor herself. “She knows where the lines are, what decisions will be appealed (and) how to rule to avoid that (without) giving up a lot of ground.”
In fact, while Cannon agreed that the witnesses’ names should not be revealed at this time, she rejected Smith’s arguments that their statements should also be sealed — a potential route to identifying them.
Randall Eliason, a former U.S. attorney who teaches law at George Washington University, argued that Cannon is a cynic who knows what she’s doing.
“Cannon drags things out as long as possible, then walks to the edge without giving Smith anything concrete that he could bring to the 11th Circuit,” he said. written the.
But others were reassured by Tuesday’s decision. After all, while it didn’t give the special prosecutor everything he wanted, it came close.
The “moral” of Cannon’s story is this, argued Andrew Weissmann, the lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation, in a post on: “She is backing down to avoid an appeal which could lead to her dismissal.”
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