

Aileen Cannon is a US District Judge for the Southern District of Florida. She made a ruling earlier this week on the Trump team’s request for a Special Master, claiming both executive priviledge and personal confidientality, on documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. The Trump team insisted that this included the 103 documents marked with classification ratings. Cannon made a ruling that stunned most of the legal community by determining that a Special Master was required and that the FBI halt all investigation on the classified documents until reviewed by the Special Master. She further stated that the Special Master had to complete the review by November 30. A delay that the Trump team loved. The DOJ naturally appealed. While Cannon made a number of stunning statements, in her ruling, one of the most stunning was as follows;
“The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions, that all of the approximately 100 documents isolated by the Government (and “papers physically attached to them”) are classified government records.”
Basically, Cannon said that she did not trust the Government. The appeal went to a conservative leaning 11th Circuit. The appeal was reviewed by three judges, one Obama appointee and two Trump appointees. To put it politely, they destroyed Cannon’s ruling. The following are two of the most damaging statements, made in their ruling .
“Classified documents are marked to show they are classified, for instance, with their classification level,”
“For our part, we cannot discern why Plaintiff would have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings,”
Immediately after, Cannon reversed her ruling, thus allowing the classified documents to no longer be reviewed by the Special Master and for the criminal investigation, relating to the classified documents, to continue. So much for Cannon’s 15 minutes of infamy.
This was only part of Trump’s bad week. The Special Master appointed by Cannon, and, a pick Trump wanted, moved, prior to the appeal decision, the closure date from November 30 to October 7. The Special Master, at the first hearing, rebuked Trump’s claim that the documents were declassified and demanded proof of the declassification. Then, later on in the week, the Special Master demanded proof of Trump’s claim that the FBI had planted documents at Mar-a-Lago, during the search. Trump was outraged, calling Special Master Dearie a “beauty” (Putin used the same term on Zelensky) and saying the system was rigged. Dearie was Trump’s choice. Trump now wants an “extra-Special Master”
Trump’s bad week continued when he want on the Hannity Show and claimed that there is not a need to have a process in place to declassify documents. According to Trump, all he has to do is to think that they are declassified and they become declassified. There is still overwhelming insulting laughter, in the social media world, on that one. Even Republican Senators are unable to support him, on that one.
So that is how bad Donnie’s week has been. That is not even mentioning that the January 6 Committee announced another hearing for next Wednesday. Then, there is the bombshell $250 million civil law suit in New York against Donnie and his three adult children, including criminal referrals to the Southern District of New York and to the IRS. Donnie, you brought this on yourself. Aileen, what the hell were you thinking?
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