Ex-Prosecutor Says New Trump Ruling Is ‘Worst Possible Outcome’ For Government

On Mar 15, 2024

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann on Thursday argued why he believes the newest improvement in former President Donald Trump’s categorised paperwork case is definitely the “worst possible outcome” for prosecutors.

Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon mentioned she didn’t need to “prematurely decide” on Trump’s declare that particular counsel Jack Smith’s case was based mostly on unconstitutional vagueness as she dismissed that movement introduced by Trump’s attorneys.

But it left the door open for the GOP nominee’s attorneys to lift it once more and delay proceedings additional, Weissmann advised MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.

Had Cannon “simply said, ‘I agree with Donald Trump and I find that this is vague and I am dismissing it,’ the government could have appealed it to the 11th Circuit, as they have done twice before, and won twice before,” mentioned Weissmann.

That is “something that this judge is trying to avoid at all cost,” he claimed. “She also did not want to rule in favor of the government, so what she did is, said, ‘You know what, why don’t you bring this up later? I think there’s some real issues here,’ so she sort of flagged that.”

Weissmann anticipated “a lot of complications if she deals with this after a jury is sworn in this case because that is the key moment where double jeopardy becomes attached, and there are various legal consequences to that.”

“So this is the worst possible decision for the government,” he added. “By kicking it down the road and saying, ‘I may still decide in Donald Trump’s favor later,’ she has sort of avoided the Damocles of the 11th Circuit, but she has not given the government what they clearly deserve because there is nothing vague about this statute. People are in jail all over […] for violating this statute.”

Watch the evaluation right here:

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Obama-era performing Solicitor General Neal Katyal largely agreed with Weissmann’s evaluation, saying Cannon had “kicked the can down the road.”

Katyal criticized Cannon for dedicating a complete day to simply two motions, which he described as “thoroughly absurd.”

“I mean, really, the only thing Donald Trump’s arguments merit are an eye-roll and a swift denial and not this labored one-day hearing and the like,” he advised O’Donnell. “Every time she has these hearings, it delays the day of reckoning for Donald Trump, which is all he wants because if he can stretch this past the election [and he wins] he can order the Justice Department to drop this prosecution.”