Judge in Trump Documents Case Questions Prosecution’s Use of Out-of-District Grand Jury
The case is handled in Judge Aileen Cannon’s Fort Pierce, FL, courtroom. However, most of the grand jury work is happening through a D.C. grand jury.
Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida denied the DOJ’s request for sealed filings and questioned its use of D.C. grand juries in the Mar-a-Lago case.
Special Counsel Jack Smith asked for a Garcia hearing regarding attorney Stanley Woodward Jr. A Garcia hearing is:
Garcia hearing refers to hearing held under criminal procedure to ensure that a defendant who is one of two or more defendants represented by the same attorney realizes the following :
1.that there is a risk of conflict of interest inherent in the joint representation ;
2.that s/he is entitled to the services of an attorney who does not represent anyone else in the defendant’s case.
Smith asked for one because of “possible conflicts of interest that may arise from” Woodward’s “prior and current representation of three individuals” he might call to testify in Waltine Nauta’s trial, who Woodward is representing.
Nauta, like Trump, is accused of concealing or withholding documents along with “taking part in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.” He pleaded not guilty.
An indictment in July alleges Trump and Nauta tried to get a “Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker delete security camera footage in order to prevent it from being provided to the grand jury.”
Smith also asked “for leave to file under seal a ‘supplement’ containing additional information ‘to facilitate the Court’s inquiry.'” He insisted that the ‘supplement’ should be sealed “to comport with grand jury secrecy.”
Cannon said Smith did not “satisfy the burden of establishing a sufficient legal or factual basis to warrant sealing the motion and supplement.”
Cannon gave Nauta until August 17 to file a motion regarding a Garcia hearing.
But Cannon also said the response from Nauta should address Smith “using an out-of-district grand jury to investigate and/or seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district.”
Smith has until August 22 to respond to Cannon’s concerns about the grand jury by August 22.
The case is handled in Cannon’s Fort Pierce, FL, courtroom. However, most of the grand jury work is happening through a D.C. grand jury.
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Comments
About time someone questioned Smith.
Smith also used an out venue (DC, of course) grand jury to pierce Trump’s attorney/client privilege.
Just imagine if a real judge were presiding over the DC farce.
There has to be just a bit of curiosity into how the trial of the Presidential candidate most likely to come up against the current President just happened to be assigned to the judge with the most donations to the Dems, the most out of court statements against Trump, and the highest sentences imposed on J6 defendants (in excess of even the DOJ’s inflated demands). An audit of the ‘random’ process is most certainly required, and a fair judicial system would be more than happy to oblige (therefore they will fight an audit like a starved weasel)
I have thought about this too. There is supposed to be a ‘rotation’ amongst the judges on any given court, but there is no oversight over this rotation, so they can do anything they want and point to the supposed neutral rotation as a backstop.
It is interesting how these kinds of judges appear to just happen to be assigned to cases where their “bias” can be most useful to The Cause.
I guess DC because that’s where they left the ham sandwich.
Why is there even a circuit court in DC. It seems that the jury pool would always be suspect considering the outsized impact on the government on the only Federal city.
Predicate for a Representative and a couple of Senators.
DC has neither of those things. It keeps demanding them, and the Dems are on record as wishing to grant their request, but to do that they’ll need a majority in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the senate, as well as the president to sign it. Right now they’ve got one out of three, and as of 2025 they’re likely to have none.
If the GOP wins in 2024 as many have suggested disperse the Federal Government to remote parts of the country and reverse the Obama action which increased the number of judges for DC and in fact reduce it dramatically.
Courts in Virginia and West Virginia could handle any remaining cases that involve political issues.
The beauty of dispersing the various agencies is that many employees would quit rather than work in Minot or Fairbanks or Yuma. That would reduce the number uniparty tyrants as well as enable a big budget cut by not replacing as many as possible. In addition, it would serve to diversify the government by hiring key people from outside the Ivy League/DC, Northeast Corridor bubble.
It would also mitigate the concentration of power. Congressmen who are married to journalists whose brother is a judge, etc.
I believe that most Americans are unaware of the level of nepotism in the Federal Government.
I have always said the best “pasture” land for tenured employees of the federal government is a warehouse in North Shore Alaska. Give them a desk, no phone and don’t allow personal electronics. And kindly tell them their position has been moved to to north Shore, and hand them a 40K payment for their relocation fees, Taxable of course.
Everyone should be suspicious of “venue shopping,” even the media, right?
Our DoJ would never do such a thing, right?
/*sarc off*/
The media couldn’t give a flying fuck about anything like this because the media is right behind these never ending prosecutions.
Unless I missed something the search warrant did not list Trump’s security camera video.
They have to review it, since the FIB demanded that the cameras be turned off so we couldn’t see their “legitimate” investigative work in Melania’s underwear drawer and Barron’s video games…
Wanting the security cameras turned off was a no-go in the first place and they have no standing to demand to “review” them later IMO.
Perhaps he didn’t want the FNI to get vidoes of Melania and him in flagrante, and seeing them appear on porntube.
Great topic. A lot to dissect here. Can you at least find a better picture of judge Cannon.
here is a much better photo
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F29joYRWAAAgZjq?format=jpg&name=large
Agree
Viva and Barnes have a great discussion about the indictments yesterday.
https://rumble.com/v35ezok-the-sham-trump-criminal-indictment-explained-and-eviscerated-viva-and-barne.html
it get good at about 50 Min.
Viva chops up the weekly discussion into pa4rts and posts them later. I think I have seen a thumbnail for this on YT>
He said part of the reason he chops them up is because Youtube will censure his videos so he moves the discussion to Rumble with it is all in one place.
What I like about Viva is he talks about the bullshit these never ending cases are. Pity LI continues to treat them as rational when they are anything but rational!
If it is true as I believe it is that Jack Smith is pushing legal boundaries then one would hope that judges apply some push back which seems to be happening in Florida but not in DC. The ideas of repealing the 17th amendment and dispersing the concentrated DC federal judiciary seems to make sense. Perhaps it is good if all district courts across the country get an equal chance to weigh in on matters previously handled only by the DC courts.
I Always do a double take when a prominent female under 50 doesn’t have a hyphenated surname. The practice is selfish, short-sighted and pretentious. I hope this practice dies off soon, or else in a few generations, a speaker’s introduction will last longer than the speech.
I’m positive that if Hunter is indicted for money laundering and tax evasion by a 94% Republican grand jury in Flyspeck Montana, that the current administration members will be perfectly cool with that.
Listen to the Viva Barnes video. It ain’t going to happen. Hunter already has the deal made and he will only have to go to trail over two small charges. Case Closed. Hunter has gotten off already unless his lawyers mess up.