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Jack Smith’s ‘Blistering’ Response to Judge Cannon Could ‘Remove Her From the Case’: Experts

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Special Counsel Jack Smith in a near-midnight filing Tuesday responded to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s request to “engage with” two possible scenarios for jury instructions in the Espionage Act case against Donald Trump even before she has set a trial date.

Legal experts say Smith had no choice but to respond as strongly as he did given Judge Cannon’s proposed jury instructions are – they and Smith say – ““fundamentally flawed,” and based on a misinterpretation of law. Some noted if the case were to go to trial under a false legal theory held by the judge, the Special Counsel could not appeal any possible “not guilty” verdict.

“It’s unusual for [federal] prosecutors to be this aggressive with a judge & well warranted here. She left them with no other choice,” observes professor of law, MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst, and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance. “The Special Counsel cites law from the 11th Circuit’s sister circuit, the Fifth, that lets them bring a writ of mandamus asking the appellate court to correct a district judge’s decision to use a clearly erroneous jury instruction that could lead to acquittal.”

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Vance also says Smith had to “spoon feed” Judge Cannon.

MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner says acquittal is Cannon’s goal: “In a new court filing, Jack Smith goes directly after Judge Cannon’s lawless proposed jury instructions. And he threatens to appeal (mandamus) her. He’s right – Cannon is trying to nefariously orchestrate an acquittal for Trump.”

In his filing Smith threatened he would go over Cannon’s head to ask the higher court rule against her, to avoid a faulty acquittal.

“In Jack Smith’s blistering filing yesterday on Judge Cannon’s aberrant proposed jury instructions, Jack tells her she ‘must’ rule ‘promptly’ so he can weigh appellate options,” writes Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff.

“Extraordinary late night filing by Special Counsel Smith sets forth how Judge Aileen Cannon could doom the prosecution by delaying ruling on her legally flawed jury instructions until after the trial starts (when Double Jeopardy attaches) thus depriving prosecution of any ability to cure,” writes former federal prosecutor Shanlon Wu.

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The Special Counsel’s Office “team explicitly states that this kind of scenario is what a writ of mandamus exists to address – implicitly warning Cannon that they view her position as not only indefensibly flawed legally but saying the quiet part aloud that that they are on to the possibility that the timing of her ruling could be substantively fatal to successful prosecution of Trump – ever,” he continued. “Now the question becomes whether Judge Cannon will quickly rule or delay further.”

National security attorney Brad Moss says, “Jack Smith puts Cannon on notice that he has had enough with his weird game,” apparently referring to Trump’s legal strategy of invoking the Presidential Records Act as a defense. “The PRA angle is a question of law, not fact, and if she believes Trump’s PRA defense she should grant his motion and let Smith take this to the 11th circuit already.”

“Oh,” Moss adds, “and they make clear Tom Fitton [i]s the source of Trump’s ridiculous legal theories, as all the reporting made clear ages ago.”

Fitton is conservative activist Tom Fitton, who is not an attorney but a right-wing pro-Trump activist, president of Judicial Watch, and reportedly a member of the far-right Council for National Policy.

Former federal prosecutor Randall Eliason, who teaches white collar crime law at The George Washington University Law School adds more insight into the Fitton connection.

“One interesting thing in this pleading is the history of how the bogus defense that these were personal records Trump was allowed to keep was invented by Judicial Watch and shared in a Tweet w/ Trump, who then adopted it even though his own people said it was wrong.”

Politico’s Kyle Cheney sums up Smith’s filing.

“Prosecutors are emphatic: Trump’s treatment of presidential/personal records is both a ‘fiction’ he invented belatedly (at urging of Tom Fitton) to justify keeping records he was plainly not authorized to have,” Cheney writes. “And whether he designated them ‘personal’ is irrelevant.”

MSNBC host and legal contributor Katie Phang writes, “Judge Cannon has been given fair warning over and over again by Special Counsel Jack Smith. I guess some folks have to learn the hard way.”

NYU Law professor, MSNBC legal analyst, and former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissman, suggesting a three strikes rule, says Judge Cannon could be removed from the case. He writes that if Smith’s motion “gets to the 11th Circuit, it will both reverse Cannon again — AND I think it will remove her from the case- 3 reversals is more than enough for this inexperienced judge, who gets the law wrong and always in Trump’s favor.”

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‘No Amnesty’ and No Plan: Trump Ag Sec Grilled on Farm Labor as Deportations Continue

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One day after appearing in front of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to tell reporters there will be “no amnesty” for undocumented farm workers while insisting adults on Medicaid could replace them, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins faced sharp criticism for having no “concrete” plan to meet what she declared is the Trump administration’s goal of an entirely “legal” U.S. farm worker workforce.

“It sounds like you don’t yet have a concrete proposal to deal with farmers who rely on undocumented workers, am I right?” a Fox News Business host asked (video below).

“Well, no, we are working on it. We’re working on a concrete proposal,” Secretary Rollins insisted.

READ MORE: ‘Secretary Chaos’: Hegseth Running ‘Absolute Clown Show’ Critics Say, Amid Calls to Resign

“You’re working on it but that’s not a concrete proposal,” the host sharply charged.

“Well, no, the president has been very, very clear. We need to make sure that the food supply is safe,” Rollins said, before insisting that “ultimately, we have to move toward a 100% legal workforce, and that’s what this president stands for, and that’s what we’re doing.”

“The mass deportations will continue, but the president has been very clear that we have to make sure we’re not compromising our food supply at the same time,” Rollins said before declaring that “Congress has to fix it,” and U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer “is on it.”

“The border has to be secure and there will be no amnesty,” Rollins added, before the host again pointed out the administration has no plan yet.

READ MORE: Trump Claims ‘Tremendous Power’ to Run ‘Places’ Like DC and NYC

“It’s not easy, but I don’t think it’s fair to say there is a concrete proposal when you’re still working out details to try to deal with the needs of farmers who need a lot of these undocumented workers and at the same time not providing an amnesty.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Stupid Liberals With Stupid Policies’: Trump Transportation Secretary Slams NYC

 

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‘Secretary Chaos’: Hegseth Running ‘Absolute Clown Show’ Critics Say, Amid Calls to Resign

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Last week, reportedly without consulting the White House, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth unilaterally approved the decision to halt critical weapons shipments to Ukraine, which has been the target of increased attacks in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal war against the sovereign nation.

President Trump on Tuesday claimed he had no knowledge of who ordered the halt in weapons shipments. That pause came just after his July 3 call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hours later, Russia launched a massive bombing campaign against Ukraine.

“Russia launched its largest-ever drone and missile barrage on Ukraine, two days after the US stopped the delivery of some key weapons to Kyiv — including crucial interceptors used to shoot down Moscow’s missiles,” The Financial Times reported on July 4. “The barrage began soon after an hour-long phone call between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.”

READ MORE: Trump Claims ‘Tremendous Power’ to Run ‘Places’ Like DC and NYC

The halt of weapons to Ukraine was so catastrophic and damaging that it set off “a scramble inside the administration to understand why the halt was implemented and explain it to Congress and the Ukrainian government,” CNN reported. “The US special envoy to Ukraine, Ret. Gen. Keith Kellogg, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also Trump’s national security adviser, were also not told about the pause beforehand and learned about it from press reports, according to a senior administration official and two of the sources.”

“The episode underscores the often-haphazard policy-making process inside the Trump administration, particularly under Hegseth at the Defense Department,” CNN added.

Last week’s halt was the third time Secretary Hegseth unilaterally decided to stop weapons shipments to Ukraine, according to NBC News.

Pentagon officials last week said the halt was due to concerns over U.S. weapons stockpile levels, but NBC News reported that “an analysis by senior military officers found that the aid package would not jeopardize the American military’s own ammunition supplies, according to three U.S. officials.”

Hegseth’s decision “blindsided the State Department, members of Congress, officials in Kyiv and European allies.”

Now, critics are calling for Hegseth’s resignation.

Declaring the Defense Secretary “completely unqualified, and on an ego trip,” U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) responded to a post about Hegseth not informing the White House about his weapons halt.

“When is Pete Hegseth going to resign?” asked Congressman Lieu, a retired U.S. Air Force officer.

“This would be a good time for Congress to investigate Hegseth’s Pentagon and push for his resignation,” wrote Jeet Heer on Monday at The Nation.

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Many of my GOP friends and colleagues are decorated military veterans who have risked their lives for our country,” remarked U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY). “If they believe — as they must — that @SecDef poses a grave danger to our national security and that of our allies, I hope they will urge POTUS to finally fire him.”

Iraq War veteran Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), and host of the Independent Americans podcast, blasted Hegseth.

“No surprise here,” he wrote, also responding to a post about the weapons halt. “The sloppiness and incompetence is consistent. And his flawed leadership continues to disrupt and frustrate folks all across the Pentagon. And now, it’s also frustrating the White House and Trump himself.”

“He is Secretary Chaos,” Rieckhoff continued. “And every day he falls deeper beyond his depth. We are less safe, our allies are weakened, and our enemies are celebrating.”

Decorated former CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, wrote: “Leadership dysfunction at DoD…. This stuff just can’t happen… serious real world ramifications… (ie Ukrainians die). Is there any accountability?”

“Hegseth is running an absolute clown show,” warned Colby Badhwar of The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

RELATED: ‘Cartoon Villains’: Ag Secretary Under Fire for Medicaid-to-Farm-Work Plan

 

Image via Reuters

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Trump Claims ‘Tremendous Power’ to Run ‘Places’ Like DC and NYC

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President Donald Trump claimed the White House has legal authority to run parts of the country including Washington, D.C. and New York City, especially should he oppose its elected leaders. His remarks were another attack on the nation’s largest city, which his Transportation Secretary also targeted earlier on Tuesday.

Trump told reporters, “we have tremendous power at the White House to run places where we have to.”

“We could run D.C.” he alleged. “I mean, we’re looking at D.C. We don’t want crime in D.C. We want the city to run well.” Hey also claimed that the White House is currently “testing” running D.C.

Washington, D.C. and its 700,000 residents have an elected city council and mayor. While Congress maintains some control over the nation’s capital, a complete federal government takeover of a city would be unprecedented. Presidents have, at times, had to send in the National Guard, but never to permanently occupy and run a local government.

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Trump added that his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, “is working very closely with the mayor and they’re doing alright. I mean, in the sense that we would run it so good, it would be run so proper, we’d get the best person to run it.”

“The crime would be down to a minimal, would be much less, you know, we’re thinking about doing it, to be honest with you. We want we want a capital that’s run flawlessly and it wouldn’t be hard for us to do it.”

If attempted, a federal takeover could raise serious concerns about voter disenfranchisement and further inflame opposition from advocates of D.C. statehood.

Trump also attacked Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s Democratic nominee for mayor, as “a man who’s not very capable, in my opinion, other than he’s got a good line of b—s—.”

READ MORE: ‘Absolutely Mind Blowing’: Trump’s Ukraine Weapons Remark Draws Concern, Backlash

“I can tell you this,” Trump continued, I used to say, ‘We will not ever be a socialist country,’ right? Well, I’ll say it again. We’re not gonna have if a communist get elected to run New York, it can never be the same, but we have tremendous power at the White House to run places where we have to.”

Trump has previously threatened Mamdani “with arrest, denaturalization and removal from the country while repeatedly branding him a communist,” according to The Independent.

Watch the video below or at this link.


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Image via Reuters

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