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Jack Smith’s ‘Blistering’ Response to Judge Cannon Could ‘Remove Her From the Case’: Experts
Special Counsel Jack Smith in a near-midnight filing Tuesday responded to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s request to “engage with” two possible scenarios for jury instructions in the Espionage Act case against Donald Trump even before she has set a trial date.
Legal experts say Smith had no choice but to respond as strongly as he did given Judge Cannon’s proposed jury instructions are – they and Smith say – ““fundamentally flawed,” and based on a misinterpretation of law. Some noted if the case were to go to trial under a false legal theory held by the judge, the Special Counsel could not appeal any possible “not guilty” verdict.
“It’s unusual for [federal] prosecutors to be this aggressive with a judge & well warranted here. She left them with no other choice,” observes professor of law, MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst, and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance. “The Special Counsel cites law from the 11th Circuit’s sister circuit, the Fifth, that lets them bring a writ of mandamus asking the appellate court to correct a district judge’s decision to use a clearly erroneous jury instruction that could lead to acquittal.”
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4/The Special Counsel cites law from the 11th Circuit’s sister circuit, the Fifth, that lets them bring a writ of mandamus asking the appellate court to correct a district judge’s decision to use a clearly erroneous jury instruction that could lead to acquittal. pic.twitter.com/IlzFSn3Vf4
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) April 3, 2024
Vance also says Smith had to “spoon feed” Judge Cannon.
5/Smith spoon feeds the Judge the law, giving her the opportunity to get it right even at this late date. If she doesn’t, expect the 11th Cir to bench slap her when he appeals in a way that makes last year’s decision look mild (& they weren’t) pic.twitter.com/TmLZun6mew
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) April 3, 2024
MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner says acquittal is Cannon’s goal: “In a new court filing, Jack Smith goes directly after Judge Cannon’s lawless proposed jury instructions. And he threatens to appeal (mandamus) her. He’s right – Cannon is trying to nefariously orchestrate an acquittal for Trump.”
In his filing Smith threatened he would go over Cannon’s head to ask the higher court rule against her, to avoid a faulty acquittal.
“In Jack Smith’s blistering filing yesterday on Judge Cannon’s aberrant proposed jury instructions, Jack tells her she ‘must’ rule ‘promptly’ so he can weigh appellate options,” writes Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff.
“Extraordinary late night filing by Special Counsel Smith sets forth how Judge Aileen Cannon could doom the prosecution by delaying ruling on her legally flawed jury instructions until after the trial starts (when Double Jeopardy attaches) thus depriving prosecution of any ability to cure,” writes former federal prosecutor Shanlon Wu.
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The Special Counsel’s Office “team explicitly states that this kind of scenario is what a writ of mandamus exists to address – implicitly warning Cannon that they view her position as not only indefensibly flawed legally but saying the quiet part aloud that that they are on to the possibility that the timing of her ruling could be substantively fatal to successful prosecution of Trump – ever,” he continued. “Now the question becomes whether Judge Cannon will quickly rule or delay further.”
National security attorney Brad Moss says, “Jack Smith puts Cannon on notice that he has had enough with his weird game,” apparently referring to Trump’s legal strategy of invoking the Presidential Records Act as a defense. “The PRA angle is a question of law, not fact, and if she believes Trump’s PRA defense she should grant his motion and let Smith take this to the 11th circuit already.”
“Oh,” Moss adds, “and they make clear Tom Fitton [i]s the source of Trump’s ridiculous legal theories, as all the reporting made clear ages ago.”
Fitton is conservative activist Tom Fitton, who is not an attorney but a right-wing pro-Trump activist, president of Judicial Watch, and reportedly a member of the far-right Council for National Policy.
Former federal prosecutor Randall Eliason, who teaches white collar crime law at The George Washington University Law School adds more insight into the Fitton connection.
“One interesting thing in this pleading is the history of how the bogus defense that these were personal records Trump was allowed to keep was invented by Judicial Watch and shared in a Tweet w/ Trump, who then adopted it even though his own people said it was wrong.”
Politico’s Kyle Cheney sums up Smith’s filing.
“Prosecutors are emphatic: Trump’s treatment of presidential/personal records is both a ‘fiction’ he invented belatedly (at urging of Tom Fitton) to justify keeping records he was plainly not authorized to have,” Cheney writes. “And whether he designated them ‘personal’ is irrelevant.”
MSNBC host and legal contributor Katie Phang writes, “Judge Cannon has been given fair warning over and over again by Special Counsel Jack Smith. I guess some folks have to learn the hard way.”
NYU Law professor, MSNBC legal analyst, and former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissman, suggesting a three strikes rule, says Judge Cannon could be removed from the case. He writes that if Smith’s motion “gets to the 11th Circuit, it will both reverse Cannon again — AND I think it will remove her from the case- 3 reversals is more than enough for this inexperienced judge, who gets the law wrong and always in Trump’s favor.”
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
