Jack Smith Just Learned His Fate After Wrongfully Targeting Trump
In Florida, a hearing has begun to determine whether special counsel Jack Smith will continue to oversee the federal government’s investigation into former President Donald Trump concerning classified documents. Florida U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by Trump, is expected to rigorously question the prosecutor from the Biden Justice Department.
Fox News covered the preliminary proceedings of the hearing on Friday in Fort Pierce, where Trump's legal team plans to argue that Smith was improperly appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, bypassing the Senate. This is the first of three hearings scheduled, according to a Fox News correspondent outside the courthouse.
“We feel that since Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, he can’t prosecute Trump in this case, therefore it should be thrown out,” asserts Trump’s legal team. They noted that similar challenges to special counsel appointments have already been rejected by other courts. The correspondent continued, “Judge Cannon, who was chosen by Trump in 2021, has come under fire in some places for ‘slow-walking and postponing the trial.’”
According to a scathing New York Times article published on Thursday, two senior colleagues urged Cannon to recuse herself from the case. However, she ignored the advice of Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga and Judge Bruce E. Reinhart, continuing to preside over the case despite criticism that her decisions favored Trump. One of her recent decisions was to halt all discovery and motions while Trump’s immunity claim is pending in the Supreme Court, likely delaying the case resolution until after the November election. If re-elected, Trump is expected to direct the Justice Department to withdraw the prosecution.
Former Southern District of Florida district attorney Kendall Coffey refuted claims that Judge Cannon is trying to benefit Trump. He argued that the pace is appropriate given the gravity of the forty felony charges against Trump, who is accused of retaining sensitive documents from the White House and failing to return them when requested by the U.S. National Archives.
“This judge is allowing the hearings where a lot of judges have simply rejected these positions on paper. I think it’s a credit to the judicial system when time is given on a case that’s this important, with these momentous issues, that the judge is taking time on issues and having hearings,” Coffey told Fox News.
Judge Cannon has also given Smith ample opportunity to argue that Trump would harass or threaten witnesses if his lawyers were given access to a long list of potential testifiers. In an April ruling, Cannon sided with Smith regarding the withholding of some government witnesses' identities, who will testify that Trump knowingly removed documents from the White House without authority. Smith argued that concealing their identities would protect them from retaliation should Trump win in November.
Judge Cannon has criticized Smith for not simultaneously providing the defense with the evidence against Trump. In November, she stated that Smith’s team argued the Classified Information Procedures Act allowed them to withhold certain records from Mar-a-Lago due to national security concerns but only offered a “broad and unconvincing theory” about the law.