Irony – High Profile Florida Judge Gets Randomly Assigned DOJ Case Against Trump Assassin


Posted originally on the CTH on September 24, 2024 | Sundance

Sometimes divine serendipity just makes you smile.

FLORIDA – The federal judge who presided over — and threw out — the criminal classified documents case the Justice Department brought against Donald Trump is now set to oversee the case into the latest apparent assassination attempt against the former president.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — a Trump appointee — was randomly assigned the attempted assassination case Tuesday after a grand jury in Miami returned a five-count indictment against Ryan Routh in connection with the Sept. 15 incident at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The indictment charges Routh with attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime and assault on a federal officer, as well as two charges he already faced: being a felon in possession of a firearm and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. (more)

Chief Justice for 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Tells Clerk to Trash All Further Complaints Against Judge Cannon and Make it Public


Posted originally on the CTH on June 3, 2024 | Sundance

When the extreme leftists cannot get their way by manipulating the legal system through Lawfare, they come unglued.

The tribal leadership of Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Andrew Weissmann and the larger Lawfare community have been waging an open media campaign against Florida Judge Aileen Cannon because in the Jack Smith documents case Judge Cannon is not giving them what they want.

It’s somewhat personal to the Lawfare crew because from the outset it has appeared that Eisen, McCord and Weissmann write the briefs and motions that Jack Smith files with the court.  If the Lawfare effort is being rejected, dismissed or diluted by Judge Cannon, the Lawfare tribe takes it personal and make appearances on leftist media networks, broadcasts and social media telling their followers to file judicial complaints against her.

In response to what the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals calls an “orchestrated campaign,” Chief Judge William Pryor of the 11th CCA has published a blistering order [SEE HERE], informing the clerk of the court not to accept any more complaints and to trash them.

[SOURCE pdf]

Making matters worse for the Lawfare pearl clutchers, Chief Justice Pryor tells the court’s clerk not to even respond to the complaints, just publish this order.  In the larger message the 11th CCA is essentially telling the Lawfare activists to knock it off, and this approach can have profoundly negative implications for Jack Smith’s ability to use the appeals court as a tool to target Judge Cannon.

“The Chief Judge for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is putting an official end to the THOUSANDS OF COORDINATED COMPLAINTS against Judge Aileen Cannon. Democrats are totally hysterical when they can’t control a courtroom (or a SC Justice like Alito).”  ~ Mark Mendlovitz

Judge in Trump Classified Documents Case Suspends Trial Indefinitely


Posted originally on the CTH on May 7, 2024 | Sundance 

Judge Aileen Cannon has issued an order [SEE HERE] canceling the original trial date and suspending the trial proceedings pending resolution of multiple pre-trial issues.  Lawfare is big mad.

[Source]

(Via Politico) – […] The date had been widely expected to move amid a tangle of pretrial conflicts between special counsel Jack Smith and Trump’s attorneys. Smith had urged Judge Aileen Cannon to reschedule the trial to begin on July 8, but an order from the judge on Tuesday afternoon suggested that she is unlikely to even decide on a new trial date before late July.

[…] “[F]inalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and [classified evidence] issues … would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions,” Cannon wrote in the five-page order.

That reshuffling further clouds the picture for Smith, who is also awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity that could determine whether his other case against Trump — charges in Washington D.C. for attempting to subvert the 2020 election — can move forward this year. (read more

Strong Segment – Steve Bannon and Julie Kelly Discuss Mar-a-Lago Documents Case – Lawfare Backstopped by Judge Aileen Cannon


Posted originally on the CTH on April 30, 2024 | Sundance

This is a good overall encapsulation by Julie Kelly and to a lesser extent Steve Bannon about what Judge Aileen Cannon is doing with the Jack Smith “documents” case in Florida.

Kelly notes accurately {See Background} that Judge Aileen Cannon is somewhat limited on what she can do about the federal government case due to the DOJ using the false pretense of “national security” to control how the judicial branch can interact with the lawfare construct of the executive branch.  The Lawfare crew intentionally created the “national security” angle to control all sides of the case and limit the release of information to the public.

Judge Cannon has recently been releasing and un-redacting documents and motions filed in the case to allow disinfecting sunlight and transparency to enter. This approach undercuts the prosecution manipulation, the DOJ does not like it.   Julie Kelly outlines some of the details that Cannon’s releases have highlighted.  {Direct Rumble Link}

At the 12:00 minute mark, Steve Bannon highlights his anger as he rails against congress and the staff of multiple committees who participate in the willful blindness and pretending game.

After noticing how congress is mute about the revelations that Cannon is providing, Bannon notes the republicans are essentially anti-Trump and controlled opposition, which is essentially accurate…. However, he’s just now noticing this?

It is a little annoying to see Mr. Bannon discuss outrage as a manipulative tactic {Chaffe and Countermeasures}, considering the years of outrage traps laid by the republicans in the Deep State against President Trump.  The latest effort by congress pretending not to notice, and then staying quiet, is not exactly a surprise.

Think about two sets of documents as evidence against two teams working in synergy. Team one (Clinton) was outside government. Team two (DOJ/FBI) was inside government. The documents the DOJ/FBI were urgently searching to retrieve pertained to both groups but were also divided. That helps to explain the wording of the memo below and the motive behind the DOJ/FBI using the General Services Administration (GSA) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as tools to conduct post-Trump-term physical surveillance and searches.

Here’s the Occam’s Razor…. and I will only say this once.  A lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and the Spygate manipulators was filed in 2022. [LINK HERE]

The lawsuit was filed against specific persons, and most of those persons were interviewed by the FBI as part of the originating investigation.  Within the subjects of the lawsuit, we find names and groups including:

Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe.

Once the lawsuit against CLINTON/FBI was filed, the background physical paper evidence no longer needed to be in the possession of the person(s) who wrote the lawsuit (physical possession).  [LINK HERE] Simple thumb-drives would suffice.

It’s 108-Pages

BIG PICTURE – Judge Cannon Unseals and Un-redacts Trump Legal Motion that Exposes DOJ Fraudulent Case Against Him


Posted originally on the CTH on April 24, 2024 | Sundance

If you have followed law and politics for any length of time, you have probably heard of “speaking indictments.” That’s where the prosecution will write an indictment or court motion with very granular -yet perhaps not pertinent- details of a case against a suspect that highlights a much bigger picture than a singular perspective against the individual defendant.  The intent is to make the public aware of the details within a case by making them part of the court record.

In the Special Counsel Jack Smith constructed Lawfare case against Donald Trump, what is generally called “the documents case”, involving the raid on Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s attorney, Christopher Kise, did something similar to a speaking indictment with an extensive court motion on January 16, 2024.   The 68-page motion is a comprehensive “speaking motion” which outlines a great deal of the fraud and Lawfare manipulation by the special counsel. [SEE DOCUMENT HERE]

In response to the filing, using the pre-established legal narrative about needing to control “national security” information [SEE HERE], the Jack Smith team (essentially Lawfare operatives like Weissman, Eisen and McCord) redacted large portions of the Trump motion specifically to stop the public record from showing the outline.   However, two days ago, April 22nd, Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed and more importantly ‘unredacted’ the motion.

[READ THE DETAILS HERE]

Keep in mind, back in the beginning of the pre-trial discovery phase -in response to the filing by Trump- Jack Smith gave the judge the opinion of the DOJ [SEE HERE] toward discovery and documents.  As noted, and summarized well by Julie Kelly:

To clear up any confusion as to what Special Counsel Jack Smith sought to conceal in classified documents case, this is what Smith told Judge Cannon in Feb 2024 in response to Trump’s motion to compel discovery from numerous govt agencies:

1) Defendants are not entitled to discovery of internal government correspondence and memoranda, or to documents that are otherwise privileged.

2) The Court Should Deny Defendants’ Requests for Evidence of ‘Improper Coordination with NARA’ and of ‘Bias and Investigative Misconduct.’

3) The Court Should Deny Defendants’ Requests for Evidence Related to Trump’s Security Clearance With The Department of Energy.

4) The Court Should Deny Defendants’ Requests for Evidence Related to Secure Facilities at President Trump’s Residences.

5) The Court Should Deny Defendants’ Requests for Production of Materials Concerning the Search of Mar-a-Lago.

AND FINALLY:

6) Defendants’ Request for Unredacted Discovery of Materials Should Be Denied.

As we noted at the time, the DOJ position was constructed by McCord, Weissmann and Eisen to make the documents case all about national security.  This was done intentionally in order to lean on prior Supreme Court precedent that the judicial branch should not interfere with the decisions of the executive branch when it comes to matters of national security.

In essence, Jack Smith (McCord, Eisen, Weissmann) was/is weaponizing national security as a Lawfare attack angle against President Trump.

One of the ways this Lawfare approach was identifiable, was in the specific parseltongue way the wording of the legal filings were pushed.  Example: they didn’t say Trump held classified documents; they said Trump held documents containing “classified markings.”   Declassified documents still hold classified markings.  CTH has thousands of documents containing classified markings in our research library.

There’s a big difference between “classified documents” and “documents containing classified markings.”  The intent of using the linguistics of the latter is to give the impression of something nefarious where nothing nefarious exists.

The special counsel then used the auspices of national security, to control -through redactions and secrecy- the types of information within their court filings that would be visible to the public.  Remember, this is LAWFARE and the primary interest of Lawfare is to influence public opinion.

We also noted, at the time, that Judge Aileen Cannon very obviously knew what the Special Counsel was attempting to do.  The judge could see how the DOJ was weaponizing the national security angle as a way to target the defendant, Trump, in a way that he would not be able to defend himself.   Cannon saw this and began structuring her rulings to combat the secrecy with sunlight.

In this latest decision by Judge Cannon, she has exposed the motives and intentions of the special counsel by un-redacting the 68-page defense motion that Jack Smith previously redacted.

This redacted -vs- unredacted approach allows a comparison between the information provided by the Trump defense team, and the information the Jack Smith team does not want the public to know. [example]

The release of the un-redacted version of the court filing comes after an early April order from Judge Cannon. As noted by PM: “Under the order, the special counsel was required to file an index identifying potential government witnesses identified in the materials included in the motion to compel, and the parties in the case were ordered to work together regarding the redaction of materials that could identify a potential witness.”

There’s another very key aspect to this which should be noted and emphasized.  Within the Trump legal presentation, you can clearly see the outline of how and why the special counsel is working with the Biden White House to target President Trump.  However, if you know the background you can also see something else, the motive for the raid on Mar-a-Lago.

Remember, every single activity that took place after the November 2016 election was intended to coverup the DOJ/FBI conduct against Donald Trump during the 2016 election. This is very a very critical baseline to understand.

Robert Mueller (the team that included Weissmann etc) was a coverup operation intended to throw a bag over all of the weaponization of government that took place from within the DOJ and FBI toward candidate Donald Trump – Crossfire Hurricane to Robert Mueller, to John Durham, to Jack Smith.

Everything that followed the 2016 election is one long continuum of covering up what took place, and the Jack Smith special counsel is part of that ongoing operation.

When you understand this, then you begin to understand what Julie Kelly is referencing here:

Julie Kelly is “trying to figure this one out“…  Let me help:

Last year, CTH outlined a four-part series of articles going deep into the background of the DOJ-FBI raid of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, along with the outline into why it was important to them.  It doesn’t matter how many different legal angles and Deep State justifications the DOJ attempts to deploy in order to divert away from what took place; the background of who, what, when and why they raided Mar-a-Lago will not change.

In Part One, we outlined the background of the modern Deep State {Go Deep}. In Part Two, we outlined the specifics of how President Trump was targeted by political operatives using tools created by the DC system {Go Deep}.  In Part Three, we outlined how and why President Trump was blocked from releasing documents {Go Deep}.  And then finally, in Part four {GO DEEP} , we assembled the specifics of what documents likely existed in Mar-a-Lago.

It is important to remember, the Presidential Records Act –the presented pretext for the document conflict– is not a criminal statute.  An FBI raid cannot be predicated on a document conflict between the National Archives and a former president.

The raid on Mar-a-Lago was a retrieval effort where the DOJ/FBI were looking for evidence of their misconduct that Donald Trump may have taken with him after his time in office.

That’s it, that was the core purpose.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) documents issue was the auspices or justification for the raid, but that wasn’t the intent of the raid.

The DOJ/FBI was on a search mission to retain full control of the evidence that showed corrupt and illegal conduct by people in the Obama administration.  The DOJ, FBI, DOJ-NSD, FBI Counterintelligence Division, ODNI, CIA, SSCI and Legislative Gang of Eight, all participated or were willfully blind to the 2016/2017 activity of a weaponized government targeting a Republican political candidate.  This action was grossly illegal and unlawful.  Every action taken post-election was taken to mitigate the legal risk of the participants.

Jack Smith (remember, it’s really McCord, Eisen and Weissmann) was hunting for evidence of the DOJ/FBI misconduct. That’s the background context here: [Page 35, pdf unredacted]

The special counsel was looking for documents held by Donald Trump that touched on declassification and/or pertained to John Durham and Crossfire Hurricane.   They were looking for documentary evidence against them that Trump may have held (he did and likely still does).

Again, (1) Crossfire Hurricane, (2) Robert Mueller and (3) John Durham was all one long continuum with a shift in operational intent.  CH was the original targeting, RM was the continuation of the targeting and coverup, JD was the coverup and run out the clock operation that never looked at anything RM did.

The number (4) in the continuum was/is Jack Smith.

Judge Aileen Cannon can clearly see the construct of the fraudulent case against Donald Trump; however, she needs to tread carefully.  Mary McCord, Andrew Weissmann and Norm Eisen are using “national security” as a tool to subvert and control the judicial branch while railroading President Trump.

Judge Aileen Cannon stands in the way of this specifically constructed Lawfare case.

Jack Smith, Andrew Weissmann and Norm Eisen Are Big Mad at Judge Aileen Cannon Overseeing the Trump Documents Case


Posted originally on the CTH on April 3, 2024 | Sundance

Before getting into the weeds, here’s the big picture baseline.  All

documents and records created within the executive branch are created
for the benefit of the head of the Executive Branch, the president.

There is no entity, organization, assembly, institution, person or
individual, above the President of the United States. The president
holds absolute power and absolute immunity. Everyone within the
executive branch works at the pleasure of the president, and all work
products are created for his administration. This is the plenary power
of the president.

The
entire documents case in Florida rests on the principle that another
entity supersedes the president within the executive branch.  Some
unknown, unnamed bureaucracy can override the president and decide for
themselves what would be called a “presidential record” and what would
be called “classified information.”

Jack Smith, Norm Eisen (pictured left, red tie) and Andrew Weissmann
each argue that some other entity rests atop the president and can make
this decision.

Judge Aileen Cannon has not determined which constitutional argument
is correct, and has told the parties to create jury instructions both
ways. The Lawfare crew of Smith, Eisen and Weissmann are going bananas.

[…] Cannon’s
first scenario would allow the jury to make a factual determination
about whether a former president deemed a record to be personal or
official under the PRA. That is nonsensical – presidents are not allowed
to designate official records as personal ones, so there is no factual
issue for a jury to resolve.

A different set of laws govern the
classification process and the rules for handling highly sensitive
classified documents — not the PRA. They include Executive Order 13526. One of the authors of this column (Eisen) helped write that executive order. The 11th Circuit has already established that those rules fully apply to former presidents.

Cannon seems to think that the PRA
somehow supersedes the executive order and the rest of federal law
pertaining to the handling of classified materials. It does not. On the
contrary, the PRA defines “personal records” as “all documentary
materials … of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not
relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional,
statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.”
That cannot possibly include highly classified battle plans, nuclear
secrets and the other official documents at issue in this criminal
prosecution.

That rules out Cannon’s first
hypothetical. But as Smith points out in his filing, the second
alternative is just as bad. She made up a legal standard, asking both
sides to assume that Trump could have deemed a record personal by simply
not including it with the records transmitted to the National Archives
and Records Administration at the end of his term. If this were true,
the mere fact that Trump took the documents with him from the White
House would inherently turn them into personal records.

Of course, Trump leaped at this
interpretation, fashioning proposed jury instructions that would
inevitably result in his acquittal. But, as Smith noted, this approach
has no basis in the law — or the facts. Even Trump himself does not seem
to have considered classified documents personal after he left the
White House, as evidenced in an audio recording CNN obtained last year
in which Trump, during a conversation at his Bedminster, New Jersey,
estate in 2021, discussed documents remaining classified even though he
took them with him upon leaving office. Smith hits this point hard,
arguing that Trump’s position that records are personal was “invented”
when the controversy over the documents began to emerge in February
2022, over a year after Trump left the White House. (read more)