New questions raised over how Trump's Mar-a-Lago case ended up in the hands of Judge Aileen Cannon

[diehardblue]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/new-questions-raised-over-how-trump-s-mar-a-lago-case-ended-up-in-the-hands-of-judge-aileen-cannon/ar-AA135RXw?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=4f9fcafc500e49a3a047019d9d2ee67e

According to a report from the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, more and more legal experts and observers are questioning the sequence of unusual events that led to Donald Trump's legal battle with the Department of Justice over the search and seizure of government documents he took with him to his Mar-a-Lago resort ended up under the watchful eye of one his hand-picked federal judges.

Since the day U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida was handed the case filed by the former president's lawyers, she has issued a series of pro-Trump rulings that have baffled -- and enraged -- legal scholars.

The DOJ, for its part, has been busy running to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atalanta, which has consistently either overruled her or issued stays favorable to the government as investigators ponder Espionage Act or obstruction charges.

According to Pagleiry, recent information on how the suit was filed, far from Palm Beach where Trump lives, has led to more scrutiny of how Trump's people gamed the system.

"When Donald Trump’s legal team filed their court paperwork protesting the Mar-a-Lago raid, a lawyer took the rare step of actually filing the paperwork in person. At a courthouse 44 miles from Mar-a-Lago. And they got a judge to oversee the case that was outside both West Palm Beach—where the raid took place—and the district where they filed," the Daily Beast reporter wrote. "Those incredible coincidences have led lawyers and legal experts to suggest that something may not be above board with how Trump’s team filed their lawsuit."

[gab13by13]

1. Yet when someone posted here that Trump "judge shopped,"

he/she was rudely criticized by numerous people here for not knowing how the system works. I believe those people who claimed that Trump went judge shopping know exactly how the system is working, and it's not how it's supposed to work.

[yardwork]

10. People are constantly surprised at Trump's brazen levels of corruption.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. Very suspicious! I agree. So it's not illegal to do what they did?

Strikes me that everyone would find a simpatico judge if not?? Know it's different, but know change of venue sometimes difficult to get.

More and more apparent to me that trump has never been about overtly breaking laws... But more about always finding what should be illegal but might not be.

[NullTuples]

39. Not everyone, just those who can afford it and have connections.

[Farmer-Rick]

20. It was so obviously judged shopped from the beginning

I'm surprised DUers would argue with you over it. I hope you didn't agree with them.

I just took it as a given that Trump was judge shopping. A lot of the filthy rich judge shop. It's something most average people can't do. It requires paying for a group, or firm, of lawyers willing to do it. Because many judges think judge shopping is unsavory.

What I find interesting are the many different ways you can judge shop. The filing in person with a boughten judge is a really easy one. Sometimes it requires numerous filings and a lot of work for the law firm. Sometimes you get an easy one.

[Handler]

27. I remember that as well. You are absolutely correct.

[Orrex]

28. Yes of course. The most important thing is that we dare not question The System.

Sure, Trump has stacked the deck in his favor and getting away with obvious crimes, malfeasance and corruption, but if you presume to point this out then you're the real villain.

Obviously.

[Corgigal]

35. Well, that's sad.

He actually put in a carve out to get to his judge, his district (he believed), to Judge Thompson.

All intentional.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

2. Nothing concerning tRump is "above board."

[yankee87]

3. Disbarment

This judge obviously is inept and corrupt. Now the question is what is to do with her? Will there be a judicial overview of her? So tired of everything TFG corrupted.

[MyOwnPeace]

12. Should be done NOW!

SO MANY qualified legal scholars and practicing lawyers have stated how 'unusual' and faulty "Judge" Cannon's ruling have been - it is time to indeed take her position away from her before she delivers more wrongly conceived rulings that would deliver more instances of injustice.

Or, as I used to hear on TV: "You're FIRED!"

[70sEraVet]

4. I hadn't heard the phrase 'judge shopping' before.

Another commodity that average Americans can't afford?

[dlk]

7. There are those in every profession who can be bought

Human nature…

[Laura PourMeADrink]

21. Yes :(. Although average Americans don't either donate

Or blackmail judges in different locales

Would like to see her donation records

[azureblue]

22. it requires

inner knowledge of the "System". Knowing which judge does what. An attorney with experience picks up tidbits about the judges, so they can get a favorable judge to try their cases.

[eggplant]

40. the more common term is "venue shopping" but essentially it's the same thing.

it happens all the time, his lawyers are earning their money. at least the 11th circuit is slapping the shit out of the judge.

[dalton99a]

5. Kick

[Hortensis]

6. Good. AND that the DoJ is asking that her original decision be vacated.

Or whatever the legal term would be. It's the one that caused everyone to learn her name.

On Friday, prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago documents case asked the Eleventh Circuit to find that US District Judge Aileen Cannon abused her discretion by arrogating jurisdiction for herself and appointing a special master where none was needed. ...

Trump’s legal team will have to submit its response by November 10. And this time they won’t have Judge Cannon to correct their homework for them.

https://abovethelaw.com/2022/10/prosecutors-ask-eleventh-circuit-to-shtcan-judge-cannons-special-master-order-for-being-total-sht/

[Scrivener7]

8. "Something may not be above board."

Ya think?

[gab13by13]

9. DOJ has issues.

Nicolle Wallace's show yesterday was chilling. Christopher Wray flat out lied to a Senate committee when he said 1/6 was a failure of intelligence, it was a failure to act, having intelligence. We are learning all of this from the 1/6 committee. The John Durham bogus investigation is finally wrapping up today. Bill Barr appoints aa special prosecutor, not to investigate the secret server between Trump Tower and Alfa Bank, but to investigate the Steele Dossier. Why didn't Merrick Garland appoint a special prosecutor, who can't be fired, to look into 1/6?

Wray needs to be investigated by the IG, but he won't be. Wray needs to go before a Senate committee, where the Magats on the committee will defend him, but he won't be.

Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco need to be investigating Wray, but they won't.

Lord help us if the Magats win back Congress, there will be plenty of prime time hearings.

Aileen Cannon was the judge farthest away from West Palm Beach, what a coincidence that a lottery picked her.

3-2-1- before I get criticized.

[yardwork]

11. No criticism from me.

[Scrivener7]

13. I agree with all of it.

[Boomerproud]

17. The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

You won't get criticized.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

23. Interesting. So it's HER fault for accepting claim

And not trump lawyer's.

[gab13by13]

24. No, the criticism is about the process,

I read where the magistrate judge who was in charge of the case couldn't stay on the case because he didn't have the authority to appoint a special master. I assume that is correct, but I am not sure about that. If another judge is required then it's supposed to go to a lottery where a new judge is randomly drawn.

Whether judge Cannon had any part in being given the case I have no knowledge that is true. I assume she had no part in the selection process.

[Lithos]

41. If she exceeded her authority

Or she bypassed normal protocols, then yes it is her fault.

L-

[Laura PourMeADrink]

30. When you say Cannon was "farthest" away from PBC,

Are you saying there's a geographical limitation?

Or could trump lawyers have filed anywhere in FL or beyond... If they could appoint a Special Master?

[rubbersole]

38. g13b13!!!! How could you????

Using dashes when commas could work.

[Scalded Nun]

14. What a fucking joke. Trump has never done anything above board in his life.

[ashredux]

15. Ahh...Duh! That's obvious to our non-legal minds, it ain't rocket science to figure it out

[nowforever]

16. The USA

Is 1/2 step above your run of the mill 3rd world dictatorship. We just shower more frequently and wear nicer clothes.

[Ray Bruns]

19. Thank you captain obvious.

[onenote]

25. I'm guessing almost no one commenting here read the Daily Beast story all the way through

Because if they had, they'd realize that this is another example of Raw Story (and Daily Beast) manipulative reporting.

After going through all their reporting on how and where the case was filed, they wait until the very end of the story to acknowledge that how and where the case was filed didn't result in her being the judge appointed to hear the case:

"The Daily Beast contacted a court employee with direct knowledge of how the Trump lawsuit filing was handled, and this person said the case was placed into the federal court system’s automatic random judge “assignment wheel.”

Noble, the head of that office, also said that the proper procedure was followed on their end—and that this is backed up by a log that “is not publicly available.” She said the Trump lawsuit was placed on the West Palm Beach civil wheel, which consists of nine judges. Cannon is in a neighboring division, so she can occasionally get West Palm Beach cases.

Theoretically, that would give Trump a 1-in-9 chance of getting Cannon on the case.

However, The Daily Beast analyzed new case assignments in West Palm Beach in the week preceding Trump’s lawsuit and found that Cannon actually got a much higher share, nine of the 29 new complaints—roughly a third of all cases.

But the system still appears random. The previous Friday in West Palm Beach, Cannon got the first lawsuit of the day. Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks got the next three. Cannon got the last one.

On Monday, Aug. 22, in West Palm Beach, Cannon got the first case. Trump’s lawsuit was the second of the day in that division, and she got that too.

A head clerk of federal courts in another state told The Daily Beast that lawyers sometimes time filings as if they’re players at a casino. Sometimes it works.

“If you play cards and count the cards, I suppose they could say, ‘I’ll hold this here until I see if other judges got assignments.’ But it would be very risky because it’s random,” she said.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

26. Why bring facts into a great bashing thread?

Seems typical these days of not presenting the full facts on DU, just the headline click bait.

[gab13by13]

29. Good on the Daily Beast,

here is the article from the Daily Beast. Some stuff you left out.



https://www.salon.com/2022/10/18/i-find-it-bizarre-experts-think-its-fishy-how-aileen-cannon-landed-mar-a-lago-case/

[onenote]

32. Yep that's the article. The one that acknowledges, at the very end,

that her appointment was made through the court's random selection process and that how and where it was filed didn't matter.

I'm not at all defending her performance as a judge. But there is no evidence that the clerk's office manipulated the random selection process in this case, just as there was no evidence that anyone manipulated the random selection process so that Trump's case against Hillary Clinton -- also filed with the Fort Pierce division of the court by the way -- was assigned to Judge Middlebrooks, a Bill Clinton appointee.

[The Wizard]

31. It's a way of

running out the clock until Repubes regain the House and cut off funding the Mar- A - Lardo investigation. The deck is stacked and the criminals are controlling the elections. Minority rule is not what Aristotle envisioned when he came up with the concept of representative democracy. The great experiment in self governance is in critical condition. The make up of the Supreme Court reflects the flaws in our perverted system.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

33. DJT cheating?

YA think?

[twodogsbarking]

34. Judge on a leash. Woof.

[LiberalLovinLug]

36. As an aside.....Aileen Cannon is very creepy looking

It can't be just me.
She has that same cult follower glaze in her eyes that Amy Coney Barrett has.

That arrogance of that smug smirk. That they are way too smart to be wrong. They know everything. That smirk is for anyone that has a different opinion and thinks they actually know anything they want to hear.

[BWdem4life]

37. Something Trump-related may not have been above board?

Where's a fainting couch when I need one?

[ShazzieB]

42. I have a nit to pick with the author of this article.

"When Donald Trump’s legal team filed their court paperwork protesting the Mar-a-Lago raid, a lawyer took the rare step of actually filing the paperwork in person. At a courthouse 44 miles from Mar-a-Lago. And they got a judge to oversee the case that was outside both West Palm Beach—where the raid took place—and the district where they filed," the Daily Beast reporter wrote.

Mar-a-Largo is in Palm Beach, not West Palm Beach. But West Palm Beach is the county ses of Palm Beach County, so I presume the courthouse is there. Confusing.