'Stop the clock': Ex-US atty says Judge Cannon weaponizing 'delay' to kill Jack Smith report

07 January

On Tuesday, January 7, Judge Aileen Cannon issued a ruling that blocks special counsel Jack Smith from issuing a final report on his federal investigations of Donald Trump.

Smith plans to resign as special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) before President-elect Trump's inauguration on January 20, but he hoped to release the report before that. Trump appointee Cannon's ruling, however, complicates that.

Cannon was appointed to Smith's Mar-a-Lago documents case, which she dismissed. And Smith's other case against Trump, the election interference case, was dismissed by Judge Tanya Chutkan "without prejudice" at Smith's request — as DOJ has a longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

After Cannon's January 7 ruling, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell brought on two legal analysts: Lisa Rubin and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, both of whom noted that Cannon's decision could have the effect of keeping the report unreleased until Trump is inaugurated — at which point, Smith will no longer be special counsel.

McQuade told Mitchell, "I don't think she has any jurisdiction over it, but delay is the name of the game here. If they can just stop the clock until January 20, then the Department of Justice, the attorney general, will be a Trump appointee — and they can kill the whole thing and say there's no report to disclose. So, that's the goal here."

The president-elect has picked former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a MAGA Republican and Trump loyalist, for U.S. attorney general.

McQuade told Mitchell, "To me, seems that Judge Cannon does not have jurisdiction over this case... But they have to go to the 11th Circuit to sort that out... If they can just delay that long enough, the Justice Department would be in violation of a court order to release this. Now, that's the Mar-a-Lago piece of it. I think it has been reported that there are two volumes of this report."

McQuade continued, "So, the January 6 piece of this is governed by the judge in Washington, D.C., Tanya Chutkan, who has denied this motion to dismiss this case on the basis of the special counsel regulations. She also seems to be lacking in jurisdiction. I think probably at the end of the day, the most important thing that happens here is the executive branch is permitted to share this with the legislative branch because courts should not be intervening there as a matter of separation of powers."

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