A legal analyst slammed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday, shortly after Cannon temporarily blocked the release of special counsel Jack Smith's report about his investigations into Donald Trump.
The Context
Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, dismissed Smith's classified documents case against the president-elect over the summer. In Tuesday's ruling, she temporarily blocked the release of Smith's report while an appeals court considers Smith's challenge to her dismissal and makes a decision about how to handle the report.
What To Know
Lisa Rubin, a former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent, criticized Cannon's ruling, telling MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Cannon had "no basis" to issue it.
"As you noted, Judge Cannon ruled today that she is going to impose a stay on the release of any special counsel report. And according to her order today, that not only applies to the report itself, but also to any information contained in that report," Rubin said. "And in both instances, she says Jack Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of Justice employees and agents and those of the special counsel's office are precluded from sharing either the report or any information contained therein."
Rubin added that, in theory, that means Smith can't share information about his findings with the appeals court weighing his challenge to Cannon's dismissal.
"It's not clear to folks like me, Andrea, whether she has that jurisdiction," Rubin said.
She added: "That's because earlier this year, she threw out the Mar-a-Lago documents case, explaining that from her reasoning, Jack Smith did not have constitutional authority to bring that prosecution under the appointments clause of the Constitution. And so there is no basis here to block the report, in part because it's not clear that there's a case or controversy in front of her."
Smith quickly appealed Cannon's dismissal of the classified documents case after she tossed it out over the summer. The special counsel ultimately dropped the appeal where Trump was concerned after Trump won the election, but he's still pursuing it with respect to Trump's codefendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.
Both the president-elect and his former codefendants have asked for the report not to be released. Trump's lawyers made the request in a letter to Garland this week and Nauta and De Oliveira asked both Cannon and the appeals court to stop the report's release, arguing that it could unfairly prejudice them if their cases move forward.
What People Are Saying
Trump weighed in on Cannon's ruling and the report at a news conference: "It'll be a fake report just like it was a fake investigation."
Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote on X: "Joe Biden has immunity. He should ignore what partisan hack Aileen Cannon just did and release the Smith report immediately."
Robert Reich, the former U.S. Secretary of Labor and a fervent Trump critic, wrote on X: "Judge Aileen Cannon was appointed by Donald Trump. It was Judge Cannon who dismissed Trump's classified documents case. Now she's trying to block Jack Smith from releasing a final report summarizing findings from his investigations into Trump. See how the MAGA world works?"
What Happens Next
Cannon wrote Tuesday that her order will be in effect until three days after the appeals court rules on the request to block the report's release.
Rubin offered a theory on that timeline, telling Mitchell: "One possibility is that the 11th Circuit doesn't sit again until next week, starting on the 14th of next week and going through the 17th. Could it be that she is trying to impose a stay that will last beyond the time at which Donald Trump is inaugurated? That's one possibility here, Andrea."
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