Showdown: Judge Cannon vs Biden’s DOJ

by WorldTribune Staff, June 25, 2024 Contract With Our Readers

Team Biden’s Department of Justice appears to be in a showdown over the limits of its power with Judge Aileen Cannon as evidenced by exchanges in a Fort Pierce, Florida courtroom on Monday.

Cannon was reportedly skeptical of special counsel Jack Smith’s effort to impose a gag order on Trump. The judge asked prosecutors where they saw a call to violence in Trump’s comments about the FBI, saying that the prosecution had needed to show some connecting facts between what the former president has said and the threats they are warning about.

Judge Aileen Cannon

Investigative journalist Julie Kelly posed the following on Facebook:

So my notes from today’s hearing on Jack Smith’s proposed gag order making Donald Trump’s comments that allegedly pose a “significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger” to law enforcement in the case an arrestable offense.

David Harbach, one of Smith’s lead prosecutors, told Judge Cannon that any inquiry into how such an order would violate Trump’s 1A rights wasn’t necessary.

Cannon: So no need to conduct a 1A analysis?

Harbach: Yes your honor.

Harbach said any 1A test is “outside the scope of our concerns.”

Harbach claimed Trump has a history of inciting threats against those involved in the prosecutions against him. “We are not operating off a blank slate or a vacuum.”

He pointed to gag orders in DC and NY as evidence.

Harbach also alleged that Trump has a “call and response phenomenon” with his supporters.

Meaning Trump posts things on Truth Social and allegedly his “supporters” act accordingly. Keep in mind, DOJ has 2 examples of this–a J6er who “attacked” the Cincinnati FBI field office a few days after MAL raid in August 2022 and some whacko who recently made threatening calls to an FBI agent in Hunter Biden case.

Harbach said Trump possesses a “peculiarly potent tool” in his Truth Social posts.

He is “aware” of his potency and he “brags” about it.

This unaccountable prosecutor went on to explain how he thinks the former president and GOP nominee for 2024 president should use his social media account.

Harbach: You want to say how unfair the MAL raid was? “Knock yourself out.” But it is “over the line” for Trump to use his TS account to promote “false lies” about the FBI coming “to do violence against him and his family.”

“That is out of bounds and should not be tolerated” says unelected unaccountable David Harbach.

Even more telling. Harbach urged Cannon to do something proactively “before something terrible happens.”

Cannon did not seem inclined to approve the limitations on Trump’s speech but did not immediately issue a ruling.

The judge also heard arguments on Trump’s motion alleging that the special counsel’s office is being improperly funded. She did not rule on that motion either.

Cannon pushed DOJ attorney James Pearce to explain how much money the department has used for its work in the Trump criminal cases.

The judge noted that even if the office discloses its spending publicly every six months, a financial disclosure that would encompass last fall through this March was overdue.

She also sought from prosecutors guidance on explaining the laws and regulations that governed past special prosecutors, at one point bringing up Watergate and the era of Janet Reno as attorney general.

Cannon’s questions were so pointed toward Pearce that at one point the prosecutor mentioned how other courts have been overturned if they invalidated a government function in the way Cannon was probing, and said he hoped the Justice Department could provide additional written argument to the court if invalidating Smith was a serious possibility.

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