Published December 23, 2023
A soft-spoken former prosecutor residing in South Florida and a quippy onetime public defender based in Washington, D.C., share a rare commonality. They are overseeing completely different but equally consequential criminal trials involving a former and possibly future president.
Aileen Cannon, a Colombia native who grew up in Miami, is a longtime member of the conservative Federalist Society and was appointed to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump in 2020.
Tanya Chutkan, who was born in Jamaica, is a former President Barack Obama appointee who donated thousands of dollars to him beginning in 2008. She assumed her role as a district court judge in 2014.
Since taking on cases featuring Trump as the criminal defendant, the pair have drawn enormous scrutiny. Headlines have questioned Cannon’s experience level and Chutkan’s impartiality.
Trump has publicly opined on the two, calling Cannon “very highly respected” and Chutkan a “biased Trump-hating judge.”
The pair also work in districts that will pull from very different jury pools for Trump’s trials. While southeast Florida leans blue, Washington is one of the bluest regions in the country. Trump received about 5% of the vote in its 2020 election.
By all appearances, Trump should fare better in his trial in Florida. A string of pretrial orders issued by the judges supports that notion.
But the cases are so different that to reduce them to the political leanings of their judges and venues would be to miss key elements of them.
Cannon has indeed issued more orders that are favorable to Trump, but her case deals with what she has described as an “unusually high volume” of evidence — and any that is classified requires added attention pursuant to the Classified Information Procedures Act.
Special counsel Jack Smith alleges in the Florida case that Trump willfully retained national defense information. Trump is charged with felonies under the Espionage Act, and the indictment paints a picture of Trump recklessly storing boxes filled with national secrets in a bathroom and ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago residence when he left office before attempting to hide some of the boxes from federal investigators. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.washingtonexaminer.com
RELATED: Trump’s trial-delay strategy might succeed
Published December 19, 2023
Criminal defense attorneys sometimes say that “any fool can reach the merits.” Avoiding the merits of his case is precisely Trump’s strategy in the separate federal election interference and classified documents criminal cases.
If his attorneys manage to delay the trials until after the November 2024 election and Trump wins, he will simply be able to order his Department of Justice to dismiss the charges.
The delay strategy is showing sign of success because both cases are bogged down in procedural wrangling. Meanwhile, polling shows Trump far ahead in the race for the Republican nomination and ahead of Biden for the presidency.
The delay strategy got rolling in the election interference case with a defense motion to dismiss the indictment. The motion contended that Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution because the charges, which arise from Trump’s efforts to stay in office despite losing the election, purportedly concern his official duties as president. Judge Tanya Chutkan denied the motion, writing that the presidency does not confer a lifelong “’get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”
Trump’s attorneys filed a notice of appeal of Chutkan’s ruling. Special Counsel Jack Smith countered with a request to the Supreme Court for expedited review of the ruling by Chutkan, who then stayed the pretrial proceedings, pending the outcome of the appeals. Just two-and-a-half months away, the March 4 trial date is uncertain.
The delay strategy is also finding traction in the classified documents case against Trump before Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida, which is scheduled for trial on May 20. Documents, photographs, and witness testimony show that Trump left office with classified documents containing the nation’s most sensitive military and nuclear secrets, scattered them in locations at Mar-a-Lago accessible to visitors, and obstructed the government’s efforts to get them back. As former Attorney General William Barr observed of the classified documents indictment, if even “half of it is true, then he’s toast.”
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.thehill.com
RELATED: In Trump Federal Cases, It’s a Tale of Two Judges
Tanya Chutkan and Aileen Cannon take different tacks in pretrial rulings setting pace and tone for former president’s coming trials
Former President Donald Trump is facing four separate indictments at both state and federal levels. WSJ breaks down each of the indictments and what they mean for his 2024 presidential campaign. Photo Illustration: Annie Zhao
Published October 20, 2023
Justice might be blind, but the two separate federal prosecutions of former President Donald Trump are showing how differently judges mete it out, coloring the pace and tenor of the high-profile cases months before they come to trial.
In a courthouse blocks from the U.S. Capitol, the judge presiding over Trump’s trial on charges of conspiring to reverse the 2020 presidential election agreed this week with prosecutors arguing that the former president’s attacks on the special counsel team and potential witnesses threatened the integrity of the case and should be restricted. When Trump’s lawyer said existing limits on Trump’s contact with witnesses sufficed, the judge, Tanya Chutkan, laughed.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.wsj.com
