'Ensuring Trump’s acquittal': Ex-prosecutor alarmed at Judge Cannon's 'Even wackier' claim
A court order issued this week by the federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s upcoming trial on mishandling classified documents has observers worried that the former President won't be going to trial anytime soon. Legal experts say U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's order badly misinterprets the law and facts of the case.
One of those legal experts is former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman, who in an op-ed published Thursday contends that her latest order confirms she is "running interference for the former president who put her on the bench."
Trump's lawyers argue that the Presidential Records Act gives Trump the ability to reclassify records from his administration as "personal" — simply by packing them into boxes and bringing them to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
Cannon asked lawyers to prepare jury instructions involving that claim.
According to Litman, Cannon's order "doesn’t address Trump’s arguments on the merits."
Also read: At least two Aileen Cannon law clerks recently quit: legal analyst
"Rather, it instructs each side to submit two sets of proposed jury instructions that 'engage with' different legal conclusions about the records act," Litman writes in the Los Angeles Times. "The problem is that both of the conclusions are directly contrary to the law."
Litman says that Cannon’s first scenario assumes a jury "has to make a factual finding as to whether the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the records Trump absconded with are presidential rather than personal."
"In other words," Litman continues, "what if Trump’s contention that he magically transmogrified the classified documents into his personal property were a valid factual defense rather than a meritless legal claim?"
"The second scenario is even wackier in that it assumes a president has unreviewable authority to categorize records as personal. If the jury were so instructed, it would be tantamount to ensuring Trump’s acquittal," he writes.
According to Litman, Cannon's ruling is not just legally nonsensical. "It’s also bizarre and pernicious."
Read the full op-ed over at the Los Angeles Times.