Jack Smith allies slam Cannon’s 'lack of impartiality' while fighting to revive Mar-a-Lago docs case

19 September 2024

The number of active indictments against former President Donald Trump decreased from four to three when Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed special counsel Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago documents case. Smith, however, has appealed Cannon's decision and is hoping to bring the case back. And if the case does return, Smith's allies and supporters are hoping that Cannon won't be allowed to go anywhere near it.

Those allies include the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government (CREW) as well as retired federal judge Nancy Gertner and law professors Stephen Gillers and James Sample.

On Wednesday, September 18, Law & Crime's Matt Naham reports, those amici curiae or "friends of the court" filed briefs with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. And they were highly critical of Cannon, arguing that the Trump appointee showed a "pattern of apparent bias."

"Cannon's own colleagues, including the chief judge in the Southern District of Florida, reportedly tried and failed to convince her over the phone to step aside from the Trump case after the 11th Circuit unanimously smacked down her special master project and her blocking of the feds from reviewing classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago after the August 2022 search," Naham explains. "From there, deadlines were repeatedly pushed back, and a trial date was left up in the air."

The Law & Crime reporter adds, "Then, in July, after 'careful study,” Cannon threw out the case by finding U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland unlawfully appointed Smith as special counsel. She repeatedly cited favorably Justice Clarence Thomas' concurrence in Trump's Supreme Court immunity case, a concurrence that no other justice joined."

Naham notes that Smith "never took the disqualification approach" with Cannon, the amici curiae or "friends of the court" are "now asking the 11th Circuit to consider it."

A second group of pro-Smith amici curiae, according to Naham, also argued against dismissing Cannon from the case if it is revived.

Those amici (which means "friends" in Latin and Italian) included conservative attorney George Conway, Harvard University law professor Laurence Tribe, Watergate-era prosecutor Philip Lacovara, former Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chairman Trevor Potter, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, and Donald Ayer (who served as deputy attorney general under former President George W. Bush).

In their brief, they said of Cannon, "This pattern of unsupportable decisions, along with the district court's inexplicable handling of procedural matters in this case, makes clear that Judge Cannon has engaged in conduct that gives rise to the appearance of…. a lack of impartiality in the mind of a reasonable member of the public. Amici therefore urge this Court, in addition to reversing the decision below, to exercise its supervisory authority under 28 U.S.C. § 2106 to reassign the matter to another district judge on remand."

Read Law & Crime's full article at this link.

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