According to former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a ruling on Thursday by United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon has the tell-tale signs she is playing the long game to derail a Donald Trump trial if it ever gets started.
After scorching Cannon's ruling on Thursday that left open for Donald Trump the possibility of asking for charges to be dropped against him on constitutional grounds at a later date, Vance claimed that a "nightmare scenario" looms for special counsel Jack Smith.
On Thursday, Cannon refused to throw out charges against the former president after his lawyers made their case that the obstruction of justice charges against him in the Mar-a-Lago documents case don't stand up to constitutional muster.
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As Vance noted, Cannon — whom she derided as "Judge Delay" — left the door open for the ex-president's lawyers to revive their motion for dismissal once the trial is set in motion.
According to the former prosecutor, that could set the stage for the Trump-appointed judge to toss the case while at the same time depriving the DOJ of running to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for relief.
After scorching Cannon's ruling as "deliberately dumb," Vance wrote, "If the Judge had ruled against the government today, the Special Counsel could have appealed. But that’s not the case if, after today’s ruling in the government’s favor, she permits Trump to resurrect the motion at trial."
"She could grant the motion to dismiss the case then and at that point, with very rare exceptions (that the Judge would be in a position to prevent), the government can’t appeal," she elaborated. "That’s because once a jury has been empaneled, double jeopardy 'attaches' and prevents the government from retrying the defendant on the same charges if he’s acquitted, which is what would happen if the Judge granted a motion to dismiss at that point and before a jury rendered a guilty verdict."
"That’s the nightmare scenario here," she warned.
