Legal expert exposes Judge Cannon's 'secret docket' in Trump's docs case

Unexplained filings are piling up in Judge Aileen Cannon's courtroom — and no one seems to know exactly what's going on.

The strange "secret docket" measures, relating to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, were flagged on Thursday by Lawfare's Roger Parloff.

"Undocketed filings in US v Trump (M-a-L) are stacking up. Yesterday the govt sought permission to file a surreply relating to a reply that isn't docketed yet, which related to a response that isn't docketed yet, which related to a motion that isn't docketed yet," wrote Parloff.

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This situation was first flagged earlier this year — and Parloff suspects the issue is that Cannon simply doesn't understand how the judicial filing system works.

"On 2/6, departing from Local Rules, she forbade parties from filing sealed or redacted docs without 1st getting her permission. That evolved into attys emailing undocketed docs to each other & the judge while waiting for Cannon to make redaction decisions. So here we are," he wrote. "Why'd she do that? I think because she had a mistaken view that anything filed with the court becomes presumptively public. I discuss that mistaken view."

Cannon, a judge appointed by former President Donald Trump himself, has come under fire for a series of strange decisions that appear calculated to benefit the former president in ways normal criminal defendants don't enjoy.

For example, she previously tried to order classified documents the FBI was investigating for national security purposes after their seizure from Mar-a-Lago turned over to a special master to review if they were privileged. She is also trying to order witness information handed over to Trump, even as special counsel Jack Smith has warned it could lead to witness tampering.