Liberal Groups in Uproar Over Judge Cannon’s Block of Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago Report: Prosecutor’s Supporters May Appeal

Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling permanently barring the publication of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago report is prompting a fierce response from left-wing organizations — and could set the stage for an appeal. The Florida jurist, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Trump in 2020, blocked the report’s release last week, one day before it was due to become public. Two left-leaning groups, American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, have been litigating for its disclosure.The report presumably contains Mr. Smith’s justifications for his prosecution of Mr. Trump for his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago during the interregnum. The case died with Mr. Trump’s reelection, but Mr. Smith still completed his report, which is suspected of being harshly critical of the president. American Oversight responded to the ruling against them by denouncing Judge Cannon for “a troubling pattern of decisions that shield the president from public scrutiny and place secrecy above the public’s right to know.” They also accuse her of “unprecedented deference” to the 47th president. The group vows to “continue using every tool available to force this information into the open” and “defend the public’s right to the truth.”Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at Washington. AP/J. Scott Applewhite, FileThe left-leaning press has accused Judge Cannon of “destroying America” and now reckons that her “Campaign for a Supreme Court Seat Just Reached a New Low.” In March, Mr. Trump called her “strong” and “brilliant” and marveled that “We had an amazing judge in Florida, and her name is Aileen Cannon. He praised her as “the absolute model of what a judge should be.”Judge Cannon has long been a bête noire of Mr. Trump’s adversaries. Early in the documents case against him she ordered a special master be appointed to oversee the documents collected at Mar-a-Lago, a ruling that the 11th United States Appeals Circuit overturned and called a “radical reordering of our case law limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations.”Mr. Smith’s decision to bring the documents case in South Florida, where Judge Cannon sits, as opposed to the District of Columbia prompted dismay from members of his own team. One deputy, David Raskin, reportedly called her an “existential threat” to the case, and reasoned that Mr. Smith was “insane” to court the risk of drawing Judge Cannon. Mr. Smith’s other prosecution of Mr. Trump, for election interference, was filed at Washington D.C. and abetted by a far more obliging judge, Tanya Chutkan, an appointee of President Obama..Judge Cannon here ruled that the public’s right of access — even if rooted in the First Amendment — was not enough to negate the possible due process harm that could come to Mr. Trump’s and his two erstwhile co-defendants and employees — the valet Waltine Nauta and the property manager Carlos De Oliveira. The judge also accused Mr. Smith of a “brazen stratagem” whereby he continued to work on compiling his report even after she ruled that he was unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.Judge Cannon did not grant Mr. Trump et al. everything they demanded. She denied their request that the report suffer “constitutional expungement” — meaning total destruction. That dramatic request was seconded by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice, who entered the case to call Mr. Smith’s work “illicit” and take the position that it should be “consigned to the dustbin of history.” Such a step, though, would have made an appeal a practical impossibility and likely would have exceeded Judge Cannon’s authority. Given that the report is still extant, American Oversight and the Knight Institute will likely consider appealing Judge Cannon’s ruling to the 11th Circuit. Judge Cannon, though, previously denied a request that she pause ruling on the report until that appellate circuit had the opportunity to weigh in.Judge Cannon, perhaps anticipating the possibility of review by a higher court, notes in her ruling that she “strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt, at least not in a situation like this one, where the defendants contested the charges from the outset and still proclaim their innocence.”Even if the 11th Circuit is drawn into the litigation, the issue at hand is no longer Mr. Smith’s disqualification — the appeal of that ruling was dropped as soon as Mr. Trump regained the White House, meaning that it is now settled law. The 11th Circuit could reason, though, that if Mr. Smith’s report was composed while the appeal was still active, it was not the handiwork of a permanently disqualified prosecutor, but merely a provisionally disqualified one.

Liberal Groups in Uproar Over Judge Cannon’s Block of Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago Report: Prosecutor’s Supporters May Appeal

More from the New York Sun

The GOP Will Beat History in the Midterms by Sticking to Its America-First Values

Mamdani Wins Release of Columbia Student Detained by DHS After ‘Productive’ Meeting on Housing With Trump

Judge Rejects ‘Ragtag’ Theories in Lawsuit Seeking To Halt White House Ballroom Project

Lawrence Summers’s Due Process

Arab Diplomats Help Undermine Palestinian Attempt To Win UN Leadership Position

In This Divisive Movie Star Era, Is Margot Robbie So Popular Because She’s Actually Enjoying Herself?

Hillary Clinton’s Epstein Deposition Is Paused After GOP Lawmaker Leaks Photo to Conservative Podcaster

Bill O’Reilly To Sub In for NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo, Vows To ‘Bring Back’ the Format of ‘The O’Reilly Factor’