Judge Cannon's conduct 'is the kind of thing that can get an appellate panel really angry'
Appearing with former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance and conservative lawyer George Conway, former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann claimed Judge Cannon is "playing with fire" by not adhering to the law in Donald Trump's Florida trial.
Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang, Weissmann noted that Cannon has previously butted heads with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in matters related to Donald Trump, and her latest failure to adhere to the law will not be looked kindly upon.
Asked by the host what comes next for special counsel Jack Smith with the prospect he may turn to the court of appeals over a demand for evidence, Weissmann replied, "I think is going to be fascinating to see what he does. We don't know the underlying facts, but we do have a sense of them from Jack Smith's submission, as you noted with respect to the concern about safety."
"If you put that together with what George [Conway] pointed out, which is to remind everyone about Judge Cannon's really truly horrific history in sort of the pre-indictment phase where she was reversed from the 11th Circuit not once but twice in fairly scathing language, what Jack Smith may very well do today is seek what is called a writ of mandate," he explained.
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"It's a form of appeal, without getting into the technicalities to say, once again, she is really not adhering to the law here," he continued. "And I do think if she is doing something that would hurt the witnesses unduly, where this is the kind of thing that I think any other judge in the case would not take that step, that is the kind of thing that, depending on who the panel is, and again, I always refer to Joyce [Vance] on all things 11th Circuit, and frankly everything else."
"I do think that is the kind of thing that can get an appellate panel really angry about the way in which this is handled, and that was very much what we saw and was evident in the 11th Circuit's reversal of her twice," he added. "[It] was a real concern about her disregard of classified information of the role of the intelligence community interfering with normal criminal investigations and explicitly saying that Donald Trump will be treated differently and more favorably than other defendants. And she was rebuked twice, saying that is not the standard, he is to be treated no better and no worse than anyone else."
"So she could really be playing with fire here in this ruling, but it remains to be seen, the underlying facts in what Jack Smith does," he remarked. "I do think if he takes it up, basically as you said, fasten your seatbelts as to what could happen."
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