When federal officials decided to bring the most important prosecution in the Department of Justice’s history in Florida rather than Washington, D.C., they knew they were taking some risks.
One of these is a generally less sophisticated and favorable set of judges, the most worrisome by far being Aileen Cannon.
Cannon is the Trump appointee who allowed the former president to temporarily derail the classified records investigation with a civil action challenging the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. Her rulings on that episode were hopelessly mangled and result-oriented, drawing two harsh reversals by the conservative U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which finally put an end to the misadventure.
Sure enough, through an apparently random process, the nightmare scenario appears to have become a reality: Cannon is the putative presiding judge in United States vs. Trump.
Now of course everyone and their brother on the left will demand that this Judge "step down" and recuse herself. But that is an unlikely scenario give the circumstance. It also fits deliciously into the similar coincidence of the same anti-Trump NY judge overseeing every Trump case that falls into the Manhattan district court. Nobody asked that Trump hater to step down in spite of him making it nearly impossible on Trump and his associates in previous cases.
Obviously the right or wrong judge can make or break a case.
The main concern, of course, expressed by the author (Harry Litman) is that Florida will have potential Trump supporters (gasp) in the jury pool and some of those supporters might be difficult for the prosecutors to sway. Litman suggest that it will be up to the Judge to remove Trump supporters as they might have preconceptions and a potential unwillingness to convict him. That no less ridiculous than asking to remove all Joe Biden voters from the jury pool as well, as they might be just as preconceived to convict him regardless of how the case goes. There may not be 12 Americans who do not have an opinion about Trump, much less 12 Floridians from the area in question. You are simply going to have partisanship play a part and jury selection might be 99% of the game.
Think about Michael Sussman being acquitted in DC of the most obvious perjury charges anyone could imagine. He wrote out in plain English that he was not working for any candidate while peddling Hillary Clinton's bought and paid for opposition research and even billing her for the time. The liberal DC jury took about 45 minutes to shrug off the evidence and declare him not guilty under the guise that the FBI and DOJ should have had better things to do than charge a Clinton lawyer with perjury. The very same could conceivably happen if Trump got a favorable jury.
Another concern is that the Judge will not allow a Trial in the middle of the election season. Of course, that is exactly the timing Smith has created with indicting Trump now. Most cases of this stature would take somewhere near a year to go from indictment to trial which would put us in the middle of the general election campaigning as both Parties will have determined their candidates sometime next June. While Smith is pushing for something even faster, there is little reason to believe that Trump will agree to "fast track" the trial when he could very likely push it out past the election. Litman suggests that not holding the trial before the election would be a "grave disservice to voters". Sure. Whatever you say.
Lastly, there is concern about evidentiary and other rulings. Obviously Trump will ask that his attorneys not be allowed to testify to private conversations based on obvious attorney client privilege assertions. His team may ask to have tapes ruled inadmissible if the recordings were not agreed to by the former President. These would not be unreasonable rulings depending on the substance of the facts (which are largely unknown). There are any number of potential issues that could make Smith's job much harder and many of these will be judgement calls. Litman also throws out the idea that jury instructions might not go in Smith's favor, also making it harder to secure a conviction.
The one point that Litman makes that is valid is that a pro-Trump judge cannot be overruled by a higher court if Trump is acquitted, as the double jeopardy comes into play. I suppose the twisted logic is that if you got a anti-Trump case and he was convicted that he could appeal. As if that should be the basis of which direction to go with a trial judge. I am sorry but you are simply not going to find any judge that will make everyone happy. Someone will be upset. Smith might have the option of retrying the case if it ends up with a hung jury on the charges (which is a distinct possibility) and might at that time hope for more favorable rulings. But I doubt the country is going to stand for a second trial if they come up short in the first attempt.
Make no mistake. Harry Litman is a liberal partisan legal hack not too far behind Jeffrey Toobin or Lawrence Tribe when it comes to Trump. If he is upset right now and sees this as problematic enough to already start whining, I am sure Trump and his gang are cheering.
On Newsbusters there's a Greg Gutfeld story. You must watch thr video. It's friggin hilarious.
Where the hell is Mitch McConnell in all of this?
And the complete blackout by the news media on the Biden bribery is an outrage. Congress needs to start impeaching people. No hearings needed. Nancy showed us that.