First, she stopped FBI special agents from even glancing at the classified documents they recovered from Mar-a-Lago. Then she appointed the specific special court referee I preferred to slow down the investigation over my mishandling of classified documents.
In a letter, a DOJ lawyer representing the “taint team” explained that three weeks after the seizure of goods at the oceanside Florida estate, the team was ready to return 43 items that had nothing to do with the investigation: possible, legal, documents.
The revelation makes even more obvious how far Cannon went to appease the president who gave her a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. And it’s only adding to what’s become a resounding consensus from legal scholars that Cannon, like me, is a dangerously loose, cannon.
A description in court records indicates the feds were trying to return an addendum to the infamous letter that a Manhattan doctor wrote, emphatically declaring, “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Loose, are the cannons.
Those details were made public when the court screwed up Tuesday night and posted a sealed DOJ filing on the public docket, which was quickly caught by Bloomberg reporter Zoe Tillmann, much to the dismay of my crack team of 35, expensive, lawyers.
The FBI had a “privilege review team” of agents and lawyers conduct an initial sweep and sort through evidence to put aside anything that could taint an eventual prosecution of the former president; such as confidential letters between him and any of his 35 different lawyers.
Trump lawyers, who’ve gone judge-shopping for her in the past, seemed to do it again when they filed this lawsuit to freeze the FBI investigation. Avoiding the South Florida magistrate judge who initially approved the search warrant and was already overseeing the matter, at bar.
My lawyers marked the case as unrelated to other pending litigation. That permitted diverting the matter to another judge; ending up with my Cannon. At every turn since, she has granted my lawyers exactly what their client wants most: time to burn. She may well — be disbarred.
From the outset, Cannon signaled a deep distrust of the DOJ and journalists. My mishandling of government documents was somehow distinct, she averred, from the government’s damage assessment over whether the nation’s secrets were put at risk. Entered the dragon; entered Dearie.
I wanted a “special master” to micromanage the DOJ and review whether any seized document could be considered a privileged presidential record or an attorney-client communication. Cannon didn’t disappoint. She appointed, Raymond Dearie.
Then, when Raymond Dearie turned out to be a reputable jurist; when he cornered my lawyers by telling them to formally explain whether I had declassified these records — Cannon came swooping in from out of nowhere to dial back, Raymond Dearie.
The DOJ has already been moderately successful at appealing her decisions. The Eleventh Circuit, despite its conservative leaning, restored the FBI’s ability to keep reviewing the classified government records taken from Mar-a-Lago, imprudently.
And on Wednesday, the federal appellate court in Atlanta granted the DOJ’s pleas and agreed to expedite the appeal that could scrap the entire “special master” ordeal. Still, legal scholars worry Cannon will continue to micromanage her chosen micromanager, sans jurisdiction.
Cannon should have done the right thing: she should have recognized that this case was already an extension of the Mar-a-Lago search and transferred it back to Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge who initially approved the search warrant. She never had — jurisdiction.