Why is the classified document case on life support?

This is not just about the FBI apparently staging a photo at Mar-a-Lago, but something more serious.

As it works with most things Trump, the general media has taken it upon itself to simplify the issues with the Smith classified documents case as being something benign and petty. This, of course, means that they believe the "pro-Trump judge" is making a mountain out of a molehill as an excuse to protect Trump. Once these arguments take hold, there is no providing any nuance or supplemental facts to the situation. It is all set in stone.

But a closer look at the situation should make us all take pause before we might brush off the recent issues as a sideshow to delay the trial. If one relies on the actual facts (rather than the rhetoric) the idea that this case "never" goes to trial seems more likely than not.

Most people assumed that the President packed up a bunch of classified documents, took them to Mar-a-Lago and then refused to give them back when they were requested. After all, this is exactly the story Jack Smith has been telling everyone and the story being reported as gospel truth.

While this still "could" be the case, the facts suggests that it also might not be the case.

The little-known caveat is that while Trump did pack up documents in boxes and take them to Mar-a-Lago, there were other documents sent to Mar-a-Lago in the fall of 2021, several months after Trump left the White House. It was only after that second batch of documents was sent by Biden staffers to Mar-a-Lago that NARA and the FBI started investigating the idea that Trump had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. If that sounds suspicious, then you can understand why the judge is also suspicious.

Everyone in the media is now accepting or admitting that the FBI basically staged that famous photo of classified documents they found at Mar-a-Lago. They pulled documents out of various boxes, sorted them into piles with colored cover paper to designate levels of classification, and then laid them out on the floor for all of America to see. The implication was that Donald Trump knew they were classified and that he just sloppily left them lying around on the floor. But the staging of the photo is dwarfed by the idea that FBI may not be able to prove which boxes that they took those classified documents from. Were those really taken out of the boxes that Trump brought with them or were those documents in the boxes that were sent to Mar-a-Lago from the Biden administration.

This is why the chain of custody and the fact that the itemization of what was in the boxes do not match what are currently in the boxes is a problem. More to the point, the prosecution basically lied to the judge in demanding nothing had changed or been tampered with. We now know that stuff within various boxes have been mixed up, how can we be sure that what items were in what boxes was also not mixed up. How can we be sure that classified documents were not taken from a box sent by the Biden Administration and moved into a box that was brought by Trump from the White House?

Smith has largely argued that Trump knowingly took classified documents to Mar-a-Lago and did not return them when he was asked to. Now he may need to suggest that Trump inadvertently had classified documents that he should have otherwise found when NARA asked for them. The crime would have to be the much different idea of retention of classified documents that Smith may have a hard time proving Trump knew were there. Add to the Smith problems that the Presidential Records Act allows a President a full five years to go through these documents and the idea that it was reasonable for him to find classified documents in a matter of weeks (or face criminal charges) seems legally dubious.

Obviously Judge Cannon is under a lot of scrutiny and would certainly want to avoid looking partisan or looking like she is being unreasonable with the prosecution. In my humble opinion, she is taking the middle road here. She is not demanding a complete dismissal of the charges (even though that is still on the table) or even suggesting that the prosecution has engaged in misconduct (although that is also on the table). But she is also not just taking Smith and the Government at it's word on all of this.

She is prudently gathering more and more information and allowing the public to see more and more about the evidence she is currently considering. Perhaps if Smith and others were not continuously attacking her as being in Trump's corner, then she would not be as compelled to open up the case for public view. The more the public is given access to information, the less obvious this case looks and the more suspicious the whole prosecution looks. The release of this information is likely Judge Cannon's way of defending herself from what has been dishonest hyperbole from the usual partisan players.