'Simply outrageous': Morning Joe busts Aileen Cannon for lying about Trump threats
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough expressed outrage at Judge Aileen Cannon's latest maneuvering in Donald Trump's stalled Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
The federal judge reprimanded a prosecutor from special counsel Jack Smith's office who appeared to be frustrated by her skepticism over the need to modify Trump's conditions of release to limit his public statements about investigators, and the "Morning Joe" host said Cannon was willfully ignoring the violent attacks and threats the former president has already provoked.
"It's simply outrageous," Scarborough said. "She makes one outrageous comment after another, one outrageous ruling after another. She has already been rebuked and, in an earlier situation, by the 11th Circuit [Appeals Court] for shilling for Donald Trump. She had two judges come to her asking her to step off the case, let me tell you something, that just doesn't happen. When it does, when you have two judges coming to you saying, 'You need to step off the case, you step off the case if you're interested in what your reputation is going to be.' You know, among other judges, the judicial system and those who revere the law – she just doesn't really care. From the outside, she is doing everything she can do to play into her critics' view she is little more than a hack for Donald Trump."
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Smith's office also rebuked the Trump-appointed judge for basing an order for jury instructions on a "fundamentally flawed" understanding of the case that had "no basis in law or fact," because it accepted the former president's premise that he had broad authority to take classified documents to his private residence after leaving the White House.
"When she even puts out there that the jury instructions can basically be whatever Donald Trump's view of the law should be for him, that is yet one other example," Scarborough said. "It's sort of a real-life moment to look at on how disconnected she purposefully is from reality, which when she says this man's threat can't impact other people's lives, when this man's threats and his words have led to Nancy Pelosi's husband being bludgeoned nearly to death in his home, it's led to people mailing pipe bombs and it's led to just -- just countless death threats and people have had to get around-the-clock security."
"What she is saying is a lie," Scarborough added. "She knows what she is saying is a lie, and yet she says it anyway from a position of a federal bench, saying that Donald Trump's threats can't cause any violence or threats of violence? Read the newspapers. That is a lie on its face. In fact, you could go to another judge, probably in that same judicial district, and they would take judicial notice of the fact that Donald Trump's threats often lead to violence or threats of violence."
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