Legal expert 'hard-pressed to recall' a judge treating someone as Cannon has to Jack Smith

Donald Trump may have lost his battle to get his classified documents case tossed, but he continues to notch minor wins in the case, and all the while his appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon keeps tussling with Special Counsel Jack Smith in remarkable ways.

"I am hard-pressed to recall having seen a federal district judge tell a party their behavior is unjust in a context divorced from sanctions as we see here," said former litigator Lisa Rubin on MSNBC's "The Reid Out."

She was discussing how former President Donald Trump's legal team is attempting to get the criminal classified case zapped because of a 1978 statute known as the Presidential Records Act (PRA).

ALSO READ: 'Outlooks mediocre or worse': Trump Media investors warned off in alarming Forbes analysis

Only the effort has been roundly undermined because the 45th president was indicted on 32 counts of violating the Espionage Act, having allegedly stashed away banker boxes full of the the super secret documents from the White House at Mar-a-Lago.

"Not only is she leaving the door open for Trump to use this defense at trial, she's telling the special counsel's office that any effort on their part to have her decide now that the Presidential Records Act has no role in this case is unprecedented and unjust," Rubin said.

On Thursday, Cannon didn't throw out the case against the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

But she also left open the possibility that the same argument that appears on its face to be disproven, can be brought up later on once a jury is likely impaneled and given instructions.

Smith and his team contend that the law Trump is citing bears zero relevance to a case concerning the mishandling of classified documents and the obstruction of efforts to retrieve them.

"On one hand, while this was a loss for the former president, in that he would have liked to see 32 counts of the Florida indictment dismissed, it is also in another way a victory for him," explained Rubin. "He lives to see another day with respect to this defense."

She continued: "She's saying expressly in this order that to the extent the special counsel was asking her to decide on these jury instructions before the presentation of trial defenses and evidence, that's an unprecedented and unjust demand."

Watch below or click the link.