The MAGA-friendly judge overseeing Donald Trump’s trial for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago has handed prosecutors a minor victory on Thursday. But she also refused to take the bait on a trap that could have very well led to her removal from the case.
U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon on Thursday rejected the former president’s bid to dismiss the entire case on the faulty premise that the Department of Justice had no right to turn a bureaucratic spat over presidential records into a criminal case.
But perhaps more importantly, Cannon refused to go down a legal path that DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith invited her to travel, with Cannon refusing to issue a separate court order on a related issue—a ruling that Smith could have formally appealed and potentially utilized to get Cannon knocked off the case.
That issue involves Trump’s latest defense strategy, one that asserts he has unchecked powers to declare any government document a “personal” record, thus undercutting any allegation that he broke the law when he boxed up national secrets and shipped them from the White House to his oceanside Florida estate and refused to turn them over when asked by the National Archives. As Smith laid out earlier this week, it’s a far-fetched legal theory that started with conservative activist Tom Fittonand made its way to Trump and eventually the judge herself.
