Judge Aileen Cannon of Florida was appointed by Trump. When the Justice Department and FBI investigated the highly classified documents that Trump moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago when he left in 2017, Judge Cannon slowed down the prosecution at every opportunity, then threw it out because she decided that Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
Now she has blocked the release of his report about his investigation, at least temporarily.
Will Trump appoint her to the Supreme Court when Thomas or Alito resigns? He owes her.
The New York Times reported:
The federal judge who handled President-elect Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case temporarily barred the special counsel, Jack Smith, on Tuesday from releasing his final report on the investigation to the public.
On Monday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers and lawyers for his two co-defendants began a multipronged effort to stop the release of Mr. Smith’s report, which they claimed was “one-sided” and part of a “politically motivated attack” against the president-elect.
In a brief ruling, Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee who dismissed the documents case in its entirety this summer, enjoined Mr. Smith from sharing his report outside the Justice Department until a federal appeals court in Atlanta, which is now considering a challenge to her dismissal of the case, makes a decision about how to handle the report.
Mr. Trump’s legal team wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland asking him to stop the release of the report, which was set to be made public as soon as Friday. In a separate move, lawyers for Mr. Trump’s co-defendants in the documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, went directly to Judge Cannon, of the Southern District of Florida, asking for an emergency order blocking the release.
The legal scrambling continued on Tuesday, as Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira asked the appeals court hearing the case to weigh in on blocking the report and Mr. Trump sought to join their motion in front of Judge Cannon.
With the case already dismissed, the report would essentially be Mr. Smith’s final chance to lay out damaging new details and evidence, if he has any, about how Mr. Trump mishandled a trove of classified documents after he left office in 2021.
Judge Cannon threw out the case in July, ruling, in the face of decades of precedent, that Mr. Smith had been unlawfully appointed special counsel. Mr. Smith quickly challenged that decision in front of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
But after Mr. Trump won the election in November, Mr. Smith dropped the appeal where Mr. Trump was concerned, effectively ending his part in the matter. Mr. Smith did not drop the appeal against Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira, and federal prosecutors in Florida intend to pursue it once Mr. Smith steps down and disbands his team.
When Trump is inaugurated, his top defense lawyers will have key roles in the Justice Department. This case will be shelved, along with Jack Smith’s report.

I wonder what Trump has promised this sorry excuse for a federal judge. She is a disgrace to the legal profession.
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Unfortunately, what I’d really like to say about her cannot be said in polite company, though I have been screaming it in the privacy of my own home today. What I will say, is that Leonard Leo, the hand inside the glove here, has got to be pleased. One has to wonder if she will receive the same largesse as Alito and Thomas for her loyalty.
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No matter how much Judge Cannon tries to please Trump, she will never be admitted to the Boys’ Club. Even on Supreme Court. No Bohemian Grove for her!
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Ugh, this makes me sick. Our tax dollars paid for that prosecution; we deserve to see the report.
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Right!
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time for a well placed leak
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I read that Jack Smith’s report will be available to members of Congress. Hard to keep secrets.
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Democracy dying in darkness.
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Didn’t have a chance to comment on this post last night. Went to a town board meeting. A bitter, icy, very dark night. But it’s a start.
How low can it go in the U. S, of A.? Pretty low, I think. I guess we’ll know after we bottom out and things start to get better.
Gotta say, LOVE the word “Flunkie” used on this post. It’s great.
Because that’s what so many of these Trumpies are…. Flunkies.
I’m reminded daily now of the famous Milgram obedience to authority experiment. i.e, the tendency of people to knuckle under to authority, to be “flunkies” as it were.
(BTW don’t know if revisionists have poked holes in that experiment’s findings. I’m sure there are plenty of people on this blog who know far more about psychology than me.)
Flunkies, toadies, kiss-ups…. etc….
Add billions of dollars to the mix along with a culture soaked through with a need to be constantly high tech entertained….it’s a brutal combination.
But….
I like to imagine a time when the pendulum will hugely swing back the other direction and the nation will hunger for authenticity, honesty and simplicity.
At that point in history, we should be ready.
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John,
Thanks for the reminder that there are cycles and a pendulum. We have been through dark days before and survived. We have to be strong to get through these next four years and build better for the following decade. I may be the only person on this blog old enough to remember the McCarthy years. Thank God he was never President! Now we have a clown leading a pack of vandals! Imagine: renaming the Gulf of Mexico! That will lower the price of eggs. Persevere.
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She has not blocked the release of that report as she has no standing with the justice department. She has tried to block it, but she should be ignored. She dismissed the case that might have applied and so those are no longer active and she also claimed that Jack Smith was a private citizen incorrectly appointed to be a Special Prosecutor, which means the Special Prosecutor doesn’t exist.
The only thing we have to be concerned about is Merrick Garland’s spinelessness as he is the one who has to approve the release, which if he delays until Trump is in office will never happen.
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I read this morning a great idea.
Since Biden, as president, has absolute immunity, he should release the Jack Smith report in its entirety. No redactions. Use the authority that the Supreme Court gave him.
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