Optics, schmoptics, says Judge Cannon

Judge Aileen Cannon, who has already received not one but two legal spankings from the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals for her handling of the Trump secret documents case last year, has decided she’ll roll the dice and see if the Department of Justice doesn’t try to make it a hat trick.   Asked by the DOJ to set restrictions on where and under what restrictions Defendant Trump will be allowed to review the classified documents in his case – recall that he faces more than 32 Espionage Act counts for mishandling the classified documents and several more counts of obstructing justice – Judge Cannon yesterday decided that Trump will be allowed to review the documents in the presence of his lawyers in a SCIF, or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, but did not rule on the motion made by Trump’s lawyers that the SCIF be located at the scene of the original crime, his residence/club/hotel/resort in Palm Beach, Mar a Lago.

Much of the evidence in the case against Defendant Trump and his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira will necessarily involve the classified documents Trump is charged with stealing and then storing under improper, insecure locations around Mar a Lago, including on the stage of a ballroom and bathroom the public had free access to.  In a filing seeking a protective order from Judge Cannon that would guard against the premature release of the evidence, the DOJ had originally asked the court to bar Defendant Trump from even seeing some of the classified documents.  The DOJ pulled back from that position and asked that Trump’s access to the evidence take place in a SCIF that would secure the classified documents.  Trump’s lawyers then moved that Trump be allowed to reconstitute the SCIF that he had used to review classified evidence while he was still president.  That SCIF was located on the property of Mar a Lago and was taken down after Trump left the presidency.

So, let’s review:  Donald Trump, who stole the classified documents in the first place by removing them from secure storage within the White House and moving them to a ballroom, bathroom, and basement storeroom at Mar a Lago, all of which were unlocked, now wants to bring them back to the scene of the crime, albeit under lock and key this time.

If Judge Cannon were to allow Trump’s SCIF to be rebuilt on his property, she would be permitting an alleged criminal to have access to the stuff he stole and was charged with mishandling in the same location where he had committed his crimes in the first place.

The courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, where the trial will take place – whenever that is – has a Secure Compartmented Information Facility, as most federal courthouses do.  But we can’t be inconveniencing the former president, making him drive all the way from Palm Beach, a distance of 64 miles, nearly all of it on a six-lane highway, I-95, just to see his stolen classified documents!  Why, it would be such an imposition that he might have to skip a golf game!

Cannon’s protective order commanded that the documents must be witnessed by the defendant in the protection of a SCIF.  She just didn’t specify which one, leaving open the possibility that she might allow Trump to rebuild the Mar a Lago SCIF, just so he doesn’t have to waste all that time out there on I-95 every time he and his lawyers want to review the evidence in his case.   

Who cares if no defendant in United States history has ever been afforded the privilege of having his own personal SCIF to use for his lawyer-meetings?   Jay Bratt, one of the DOJ prosecutors, wrote in his motion for a protective order that Trump is “asking to be the only defendant ever in a case involving classified information (at least to the government’s knowledge) who would be able to discuss classified information in a private residence.”  Bratt went on to call Trump’s request “special treatment that no other criminal defendant would receive.”  Who cares about the precedent a Mar a Lago private SCIF would set?  Who cares how what goes on down in Florida looks to the rest of the world?

Not Aileen Cannon -- at least not yet.  Optics, schmoptics, seemed to be the attitude of Trump’s favorite judge.  What’s more important?  Special treatment for a defendant facing prison if he is convicted of the charges he is facing, or Trump’s golf game?

Another trip to the humiliating end of 11^th Circuit lane may be in the offing for the least experienced federal judge in Florida.  But hey!  Even that benefits Defendant Trump, because appeals like the two she has already caused have another name in the legal world: delay, the real benefit Defendant Trump is seeking with his absurd request that he should be allowed to take the documents he stole from the federal government right back to where he took them in January of 2021. 

Judge Cannon never disappoints, does she?