Jack Smith

Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith has made a new argument to impose a gag order on former President Donald Trump in his classified documents case by displaying death threats from the former president’s most ardent supporters.

According to Law & Crime, Smith attempted to justify his demand for a gag order by showing some of the most egregious death threats Trump supporters made to judges and prosecutors. Smith is seeking to prevent the ex-president from lying about "FBI agents intending to murder him and his family" during the DOJ's 2022 search for classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022.

In his filing, Smith showed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — whom Trump appointed to the federal judiciary in 2020 — threats to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron. ...

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon denied former President Donald Trump's claim that omissions in a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago would have nullified the "probable cause" standard. However, she also said she would hold yet another hearing on Trump's attempt to prevent special counsel Jack Smith from piercing attorney-client privilege.

In an 11-page order on Thursday, Cannon addressed a motion for a so-called Franks hearing to challenge the Mar-a-Lago warrant. The judge was not impressed with Trump's complaint that the opinions of some FBI officials were omitted in the warrant application.

"[T]he Motion offers an insufficient basis to believe that inclusion in the affidavit of that official's perspective (or of the dissenting views of other FBI agents as referenced generally in his testimony) would have altered the evidentiary calculus in support of probable cause for the alleged offenses," Cannon wrote....

Federal judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents are becoming increasingly more vocal in their opposition to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Multiple judges and legal experts told Newsweek that they have lost confidence — not just in its ability to objectively interpret how the Constitution should be applied to current legal matters before the Court, but also in its ethical standing.

David S. Tatel, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton who served on the DC Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (the nation's second-highest court) for three decades, wrote in his memoir that he finally retired in January of 2024 due to SCOTUS' "low regard" for traditional jurisprudence....

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's regular clashes with the prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case are "unprofessional" and far beyond what a typical judge would let happen in their courtroom, former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Salon's Marina Villenueve.

This comes after a series of hearings in which Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge who has come under controversy for dragging out the case past the election, told the prosecutor, David Harbach, "I don't appreciate your tone," and rebuked various complaints.

"They're dealing with a judge who is unlike any other judge," Rahmani told Villenueve. "She is entertaining some ridiculous arguments. She's allowed outsiders who really have nothing to do with the case, to submit briefs and to argue. No judge would allow that."...

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon appeared exasperated with everyone at her latest hearing in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, said Katelyn Polantz on CNN Tuesday.

Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge who has become controversial for dragging out the case and antagonizing prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith, did not appear receptive to the Trump legal team's claim that the search warrant of the former president's South Florida country club for classified documents was invalid, said Polantz — but she still bristled at the prosecution's effort to rein in the Trump team's behavior.

"Take us inside today's hearing," said anchor Wolf Blitzer....

The ongoing delay in former President Donald Trump's classified documents case has outraged critics who say Judge Aileen Cannon is tipping the scales in favor of the man who appointed her, but one legal expert Tuesday made a case for a surprising benefactor: special counsel Jack Smith.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance pointed to reports of Trump's 2020 Mar-a-Lago trip, "kept quiet" by aides, that has raised suspicions among Smith's team of prosecutors conducting a probe.

"Delay helps Trump in a very real sense but also hurts," Vance wrote. "Over time, the government's evidence keeps getting better."...

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) suggested over the weekend that a Trump administration official may have quietly contacted a federal appeals judge to stall a contempt inquiry, and the legal analyst interviewing him declared that if so, “people are going to jail.”

In a clip flagged by political video aggregator Acyn Torabi from the Legal AF podcast, Whitehouse laid out a hypothetical involving D.C. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee.

“If some MAGA official communicated to Judge Rao or her chambers and that resulted in the administrative stay that held the door open and kept the facts from the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation and stalled investigation into misconduct by the DOJ,” Whitehouse began, “ask any judge how big a deal that is.”...

President Donald Trump cut off reporters and walked away after they repeatedly demanded evidence for his claim of widespread mail-in voting fraud in California.

Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House on Monday as he prepared to board Marine One for campaign events.

The midterm elections are less than a month away, on Nov. 3....

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) bragged about a road salt win at a Maine Senate debate, and her challenger's comeback had observers cheering.

On Tuesday, Collins faced Democratic challenger Troy Jackson in a debate weeks before the midterms. Asked what she would do about President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada, Collins pointed to a specific victory.

"I was successful at getting road salt removed from the tariff list," Collins said. Jackson responded by pouncing on the answer....