A closed-door meeting between Judge Aileen Cannon and special counsel Jack Smith raises serious questions about the Donald Trump-appointed justice's bias in the former president’s classified documents case, legal analyst Joyce Vance said Monday.
Vance shared her concerns on her Substack about an “oddly scheduled ex-parte meeting” — from which Trump and his attorneys are barred — to discuss the classified documents should be shared with the defense under Section 4 of the Classified Information Procedures Act.
The problem isn't the meeting — which would be standard for cases involving classified material that cannot be widely viewed — but how much Cannon is stretching out the procedure.
“One of the biggest objections to Judge Cannon’s handling of the case has been the exceptional amount of delay she has indulged Trump with in what should have been a fairly straightforward case,” Vance writes.
“I anticipated a CIPA (Classified Information Procedures Act) ruling ahead of the holidays. … But here we are at the end of January, with the hearing itself still weeks away.”
The subject of Wednesday’s meeting plays a key role in Smith’s Florida case against Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges linked to top secret documents found in his social club Mar-a-Lago.
The Classified Information Procedures Act provides Smith and the Justice Department protections when it comes to sharing secret government information, Vance writes.
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Under the act, Smith can argue to exclude classified information from the case, or replace it with unclassified summaries, but first he must get Cannon’s okay.
And should Cannon deny his request, Smith can appeal to the 11th Circuit “fairly quickly” — this, according to Vance, is “the important part.”
While both Smith and Trump filed a Section 4 motion and response on Dec. 6, Cannon scheduled the hearing to take place about eight weeks later on Feb. 15 and 16.
“She offered no reason for allowing that amount of time to elapse,” Vance writes. “There was nothing on the calendar in this case that would have permitted her from doing it immediately.”
As has been repeatedly reported, delay has been a key defense tactic in the two criminal court cases brought by Smith, as Trump could potentially quash them should he regain the White House in 2025.
Vance argues Cannon — who has already been accused of sabotaging the Mar-a-Lago documents case — is skating the line when it comes to drafting her schedule.
“Instead of proceeding promptly to get to the point where she could rule on the Section 4 motions, she has permitted the matter to drag on,” Vance writes. “That delay has been particularly troubling when it comes to CIPA.”
