CNN
—
Judge Eileen Cannon has again scrapped a trial date in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case, further postponing several legal questions that have been pending for months.
Judge Cannon is set to hold extensive hearings on President Trump’s request to void the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith, signaling he may be more willing than any other judge to reject the special counsel’s authority.
The scheduled hearing marks an unusual new development in the federal criminal case against the former president: Judge Cannon said Tuesday that a range of partisans and constitutional law scholars unrelated to the case will be available to take part in oral arguments later this month.
It’s an unusual intensification of arguments in a criminal case that turned one year old this week and is unlikely to go to trial until next year, if it goes to trial at all.
On Wednesday, Cannon went further, adding a hearing on a gag order requested by prosecutors to limit Trump’s comments about law enforcement and allocating more time to hear arguments on the special counsel issue.
Cannon is scheduled to hear arguments on those issues the week of June 21, as well as on Trump’s efforts to dismiss evidence collected during the FBI’s 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago and evidence presented to a grand jury by his former lawyer, Evan Corcoran.
At the same time, she postponed other hearings without setting new dates.
The schedule change is the latest example of Judge Cannon’s approach to national security cases in the past, scheduling hours in court for arguments that other courts have largely rejected and putting off resolution of various legal issues for months.
Similar challenges by President Trump and other officials under investigation by the special counsel have failed across the country in recent years. Hunter Biden’s lawyers were not persuaded by judges in Los Angeles and Delaware. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was unsuccessful in challenging special counsel Robert Mueller’s authority. Andrew Miller, a former associate of Roger Stone, also lost his challenge to Mueller’s authority.
Even if other federal judges have allowed the special counsel to bring criminal charges, Judge Cannon may rule differently.
Cannon’s intention to consider challenging the special counsel came the same week that Republicans were sharply criticizing Attorney General Merrick Garland’s use of a special counsel.
The matter, which Cannon is currently on trial in federal court for the Southern District of Florida, is likely to remain a politically contentious matter at least until June 21, when Cannon holds a hearing on the special counsel’s legal authority to indict the defendants.
Judge Cannon has already taken a starkly different approach from other federal district judges who have presided over the recent criminal cases prosecuted by the Office of Special Counsel (five since President Trump took office).
While other defendants have moved quickly to trial, including special counsel David Weiss, who is trying Hunter Biden in Delaware this week, eight months after the indictment, Cannon has moved slowly on pretrial matters for Trump and his two co-defendants. Many of the most substantive legal questions to be resolved in the classified documents case the Justice Department first filed against Trump last June are not yet due for ruling.
It is also highly unusual for a federal judge to allow a third party unrelated to the criminal case to argue in court as part of a defendant’s legal challenge to the case itself — a job that essentially falls to defense teams arguing in courts across the country against Justice Department prosecutors. Allowing third parties to argue in court is also rare, even in appeals cases.
“The fact that these motions are being considered at a public hearing is absurd. It’s absurd that third parties are allowed to comment at a public hearing,” Bradley Moss, a Washington, DC-based national security law expert, told CNN.
But Cannon has been persuaded by three separate legal groups that she should be able to argue before him. Two of the groups support the position of dismissing the case against Trump, saying the special counsel lacks the authority to prosecute for a variety of constitutional reasons. The third group argues that the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel should be upheld.
Cannon will hear from Republican appointees Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, two former federal attorneys who are part of a so-called “friends of the court” group that supports Trump. In addition to the Justice Department and defense lawyers, each of these three groups will be allowed 30 minutes to argue, according to court records.
Meese and Mukasey said their previous experiences leading the Justice Department allow them to impart special insight to the judges.
Meanwhile, Cannon on Wednesday postponed a hearing for several days in which Trump’s team was scheduled to question federal officials under oath about how the investigation was conducted.
Trump’s lawyers are trying to persuade the judge to force the government to turn over more records from far-flung executive branches, and the special counsel’s office argued directly to Cannon several months ago that calling federal officials as witnesses at this stage, as Trump wants, would be an unprecedented misuse of the court.
Cannon agreed to the hearing Trump wanted, but it’s no longer on the schedule.
01:21 – Source: CNN
Comey says Trump is “begging” for a prison sentence. Here’s why
This story has been updated with additional developments.
