When U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon issued an order for the appointment of a special master, she instantly became the latest jurist targeted by a furious mob of media and pundits. Rather than simply disagree with her order, these critics attacked Cannon personally and ethically, including lawyers and law professors. It is a familiar pattern but the fury shown in the last two days is chilling for our federal judges who have seen increasing attacks, including an alleged attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Nevertheless, legal and media figures seemed to rush to outdo each other in the most extreme statements about a judge with a distinguished background.
MSNBC host Joy Reid hosted a frenzy of condemnations of this “corrupt” judge. Reid said that Cannon is little more than an extension of Trump like other possessions stolen by the former president.
As always, MSNBC regular (and columnist for Above the Law and The Nation) Elie Mystal struggled to outdo a panel assembled to attack this jurist:
“She’s biased and corrupt. Like, I don’t know what to tell everybody anymore. Like, I’ve been saying this since he took office. When you allow Republicans to control the courts you get nothing. Trump judges do not believe in the rule of law, they do not believe in precedent, they do not believe in facts, they do not believe in logic—they just believe in whatever’s going to help Donald Trump, and they’ve proven it again and again and again.”
Mystal recently criticized Biden’s controversial MAGA speech because it did not go far enough: in his view all Republicans are white supremacists, not just MAGA Republicans. Now he is claiming that all Trump appointees (even those who have ruled against Trump) “do not believe in the rule of law…do not believe in facts…do not believe in logic.”
MSNBC clearly wants Mystal’s brand of commentary. It recently declined to even express discomfort with launching a racist attack on Georgia’s senatorial candidate Herschel Walker. Mystal previously caused uproars for claims from accusing a senator of wanting to murder Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to his continued attacks on a high school student even after he was cleared of a false race-based story. He has called the Constitution “trash” and previously stated that white, non-college-educated voters supported Republicans because they care about “using their guns on Black people and getting away with it.” He has also lashed out at “white society” and explained how he strived to maintain a “whiteness free” life in the pandemic.
Mystal, however, has competition on this occasion from AEI’s Neil Ornstein who suggested that Judge Cannon is now engaged in obstruction by simply ordering a third-party review. The over-wrought response to this order is par for the course over the last six years.
Lawyers like former top Obama official Neal Katyal, said that Judge Cannon’s decision appeared designed to “protect their guy” or at the very least, “delay justice.” In other words, Cannon was acting as a political operatives rather than a judge.
Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe declared that an order to appoint a special master to review the documents is analogous to the Dred Scott decision as an abuse of judicial power. Tribe recently said that Trump could clearly be charged with the attempted murder of former Vice President Michael Pence. However, this is both legally and historically unintelligible. Tribe wrote:
“Cannon’s order will go down as part of the judicial anticannon — the body of decisions, like Dred Scott or Korematsu, that lawyers use for generations to teach students how NOT to wield the judicial power.”
Unpack that for a moment. Tribe is analogizing the appointment of a special master to assist the court to a decision declaring former slaves as outside the protection of the Constitution and the definition of a “citizen.” Likewise, he believes it is similar to a decision, Korematsu, where Japanese Americans were put into concentration camps in World War II. One can reasonably disagree with Judge Cannon’s order, but it is designed as a check on government power and abuse. Yet, Tribe believes it is akin to a decision allowing the government carte blanche to imprison Americans based on race or nationality.
Judge Cannon was faced with a breathtakingly broad search that appears to have seized attorney-client material and personal material, including passports and personal medical information. She is allowed to conduct in camera inspections of such documents but elected to appoint a special master to conduct such reviews. While the Justice Department claimed that such an appointment would endanger national security, Judge Cannon correctly rejected that unsupportable claim. The documents will remain under secure controls of the government and the national security investigation will continue unabated.
As I have discussed, there are good-faith objections to the order and it may be curtailed or even overturned on appeal. However, while rare at this stage, special masters are routinely appointed to assist judges in creating a record for further orders. Moreover, the investigation can go forward without the use of the documents in establishing what was known about the contents of the boxes and whether there were acts of concealment.
The attacks on Judge Cannon follow a familiar pattern. It is not enough to disagree with a judge. You must attack the jurists as unethical or corrupt — and standout in your rhetoric. Notably, some of these same experts denounced Trump for attacking jurists as “Obama judges” or ideologues when they ruled against him. Now it appears perfectly acceptable in dealing with Trump appointees. At the time I criticized Trump repeatedly for such attacks. However, Democrats quickly adopted the same rhetoric that they once denounced. Now Judge Cannon is fair game for legal experts to impugn her integrity and ethics.
Just for the record, Judge Cannon has an inspiring and impressive background. She was born in Cali, Columbia and her mother fled the dictatorship of Fidel Castro. Yet, she would graduate from Duke University in 2003 and the University of Michigan in 2007 with a Juris Doctor magna cum laude (and Order of the Coif). She worked at the Justice Department as a prosecutor as well as a leading law firm as well as serving as an appellate judicial clerk.
Has anyone here read the 24 page decision backed up with extensive points, reasoning and case law? I have and it is pretty sound and if it had come from a so- called liberal judge or Obama appointee I would be worried that it would not be reversed on appeal. Even so unless the circuit panel plays politics, the appointment of a Special Master should be affirmed. Whine all you want, but Judge Cannon made a thorough job of it.
This is an observation, and in no way is intended to bring about an outcome, but Elie Mystal should already be wearing Kevlar or its equivalent, and have at least one bodyguard. I’d put Joy Reid in the same category but she’s plain low-IQ — Mystal is not and he should know better.
Thank you, Jonathan Turley, for cataloging the final explosive burnouts of once brilliant stars of the legal profession. People like Tribe – like Garland almost elevated to the SCOTUS – are donating their legacies as a form of contrition to the false idols they worshipped so long and for so little gain. Their self-immolation is sad to watch but inevitable. Their final fury is a testament to a life poorly lived with hatred and corruption as its motivation. Republicans and conservatives should not rejoice in this Jim Jones-like mass suicide because our Republic requires two functioning political parties with a common love for our nation and its people and principles. Turley, a “dedicated Democrat” is proof that when the zealots are finally gone from his party, peace and prosperity will surface again. May it begin in two months.
It’s not just the ranting by Cannon’s critics that is humorous, it’s also that the ranting is delivered with such condescension and superiority of thought.
Lin, it’s not ranting. What these legal experts are doing is what Turley is not. Analyzing the ruling. Because they DID do an analysis and came to the conclusion that the majority of legal experts including Turley’s close friend William Barr, all agree that judge Cannon’s justification for appointing a special master is legally indefensible.
The judge went beyond the scope of what Trump’s lawyers wanted and that is a big problem for the judge.
Then there’s the bad optics of Trump’s lawyers shopping for a Trump friendly judge appointed by Trump ruling in his favor. Turley is ignoring all of that so he can focus on stoking the rage he often is critical of by focusing on the criticism instead of doing what everyone else has done, analyze the judge’s ruling. If he did that he would be in a better position to argue on the criticism that is being lobbed at the judge.
He’s a law professor. The other law professors he is criticizing for “attacking” judge Cannon are criticizing her by analyzing her ruling using legal reasoning. Turley should be using HIS legal expertise to show why he would disagree with those criticisms with legal reasoning of his own.
Wouldn’t that make more sense?
Svelaz: As is your routine pattern, you are being critical of your own understanding of what I said, –not what I actually said. You will note that my comment is 100% about the MANNER OF DELIVERY of Cannon’s critics.
Do you agree?
Turley is being utterly naive. If the majority of legal experts INCLUDING his own dear friend former AG William Barr are saying the judge’s opinion is seriously flawed and shows an obvious appearance of favoritism towards Trump then there’s a problem that Turley is not wanting to address.
His column or totally devoid of a legal analysis of the ruling which is why everyone else who HAS analyzed it is criticizing the judge’s ruling.
They are not “attacking” the judge. They are excoriating her for such a bad justification for granting a special master.
Turley is deliberately ignoring the horrible optics of Trump specifically picking a judge he appointed to rule in his case. At a minimum that judge should have recused herself just for the appearance of a conflict of interest alone.
Turley is being deliberately disingenuous in his “incredulity” at the criticism being lobbed at the Trump judge speaks volumes about his isolation within the legal community as the trump apologist he’s become. Turley’s credibility is a shredded mess.
Svelaz wrote, “They are not “attacking” the judge. They are excoriating her for such a bad justification for granting a special master.”
That is delusional thinking as in holding idiosyncratic beliefs that are contradicted by reality. Turley actually supported his use of the word “attacking” with specific examples that are clearly not simply “excoriating her”.
You are not just wrong, your transparently and immorally wrong to impugn Turely’s character and integrity for the opinion he shared in this blog post. Attacking the messenger (Turley) like you do on a daily basis regularly is what stalking internet trolls do.
Seriously Svelaz, how much do your handlers pay you to attack Turley?
Actually it’s legal scholars who are questing her decision but I guess that doesn’t matter. Her reasoning centers not on the law but rather on Trump’s special position! He’s not president any more but then we know he appointed her and he is the new Republican god. Sorry Professor but he decision was wrong on the law.
Sorry Professor but he decision was wrong on the law.
Her Decision is much better grounded in legal precedent than the general warrant signed by the magistrate, that started this carnival of political persecution. You will need to remember this when it is a Dem gets raided and his closets and childrens rooms get ransacked.
Two names:
Speaker of the House Tom Delay
Senator Ted Stevens.
There are more names. but these to prove the Dem Prosecuters are corrupt, and the Judges that presided over the kangaroo trials, also corrupt.
The fall of America will not come from the outside but from with-in. The freedom that we all have to express ourselves and what we believe in is slowly being chipped away, We need to stand up and voice our concerns in a loud voice.
Enough is Enough, its time to take a stand in what we believe
The day ends in “y” and thus JT is lying. The issue is not the special master, the issue is that the hack judge ordered the investigation to be stopped on the basis that it would hurt Trumps reputation, a reason that gives Trump special privileges no one else has. That injunction was not even asked for.
The judge did the work of Trump’s lawyers all by herself. Turley uses the words “liberal media” somehow forgets his buddy Bill Barr ripped the decision on Turley’s employer FOXNEWS.
Bravo for FOX News! –the network that is not afraid to present both sides to a story, -and is not afraid to allow its viewers to engage in critical weighing of factors on their own. Thanks for pointing that out, fishwings!
Reading the opinion was interesting given the dozens (maybe over a hundred) cases cited, almost all — I think — from the 11the Circuit.
It’s also the first time I’ve seen information such as that the FBI took Trump’s PJs (or golf shirt or….) and that the documents in question even slightly in question amount to less than 1% of the documents they took (but, you know, it was not a witch hunt)
Maybe the most interesting sidelight is that apparently Biden personally started the witch hunt. According to DOJ filings in the hearings, something Biden “requested” around May 10, 2022, changed this from just the typical bureaucratic back and forth that goes on after a President leaves office over the extent to which some of the stuff shipped out of the White House by the GSA at the end of the previous term is personal property and some is government property
“According to DOJ filings in the hearings, something Biden “requested” around May 10, 2022, changed this from just the typical bureaucratic back and forth that goes on after a President leaves office over the extent to which some of the stuff shipped out of the White House by the GSA at the end of the previous term is personal property and some is government property”
I think you’ve badly misunderstood.
On May 10, the Acting Archivist wrote Trump’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, and among other things said “I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s “protective” claim of privilege. See Exec. Order No. 13,489, § 4(a); see also 36 C.F.R. 1270.44(f)(3) (providing that unless the incumbent President “uphold[s]” the claim asserted by the former President, “the Archivist discloses the Presidential record”). For the same reasons, I have concluded that there is no reason to grant your request for a further delay before the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community begin their reviews. Accordingly, NARA will provide the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President, beginning as early as Thursday, May 12, 2022.”
Biden requested that NARA provide the FBI with access to the records returned to NARA, so that an IC review could occur. That request to NARA did not occur around May 10. NARA wrote Corcoran on May 10. There is nothing unusual about Biden asking NARA to allow the FBI to carry out an IC review on records with classified markings.
“There is nothing unusual about Biden asking NARA to allow the FBI to carry out an IC review on records with classified markings.“
If there is nothing unusual about the request, you can tell us the earlier ones made to former presidents.
As was the case in CASABLANCA, they have rounded up the usual suspects of outraged progressives so they can once again spew their hatred and almost total nonsense. They have only a one sided view of legal ethics and law.
I disagree with your characterization that this started in the last 6 years. If anything it started during the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations with the “borking” of Justice Bork and the meltdown in the senate when Clarence Thomas was appointed. That was when I first really became aware of Joe Biden and could not understand how anyone that mentally challenged could be a U.S. Senator much less a president. The mental gap between Justice Thomas and Senator Biden was breathtaking to me.
I think that was when the Democrats first realized that the activist Supreme Court was possibly going to go conservative in time and legislation by Judicial fiat was on the road to ending. And it happened! That democratic rage has been building for 30 years, little by little. W. Bush sort of got a bye with the 9/11 attacks but in his second term the rage started to build again. It certainly was not improved by Obama saying he wanted to destroy the Republican Party and then failed to deliver. Despite solid control of the Senate, House and Presidency Obama failed. And the Democrats rage built more and more because Americans were allegedly too stupid to follow their betters. And then Trump not only won but appointed 3 Supreme Court Justices and the nitemare (for the democrats happened)
A sane political party would step back and reasses their policies and attitudes like the Republicans did under Clinton and again under Obama. The Republicans have morphed into a populous party. I’m not sure what the Democrats will become. Maybe the Democrats should talk less about democracy and more about federalism since we live in a federal republic, as it was designed to be. Show a better way in the states that they control.
Oh, I Forgot! Those are the states that people are leaving in droves.
The Democrats always were (after 1912) but after Trump they officially became the Socialist Party.
That being said, the Republicans have completely failed. Just in the last 12 years, they had control of the house for 8 years, the senate 6 years, and complete control for 2 years and accomplished absolutely nothing. The only thing they can hang their hat on was sticking it to the Northeast states on the SALT deductions and the judges. Trump personally is despicable but worse — he initially hired terrible people at State, Justice, Interior, HHS, his own staff — all of whom ran the brand into the ground. Republicans would be absolutely crazy to give Trump another chance.
“The mental gap between Justice Thomas and Senator Biden was breathtaking to me.”
The even scarier notion is that Dividin’ Biden seems to actually believe his own schtick, that he is some great leader, a great man capable of restoring the ‘soul of the nation.’ Come on, man.
It’s breathtaking to witness the gap between who Joe Biden thinks he is –and the small, petty, petulant, prickly, cantankerous, short-tempered, divisive man he actually is.
He’s an angry, corrupt, lazy, entitled, demented two-bit lying politician with a sick, screwed up greedy family of grifters. He’s no leader, let alone a great one. He is a very dangerous one.
If some ordinary Joe had taken nuclear secrets of a foreign government and also put their health records in the same filing cabinet, do you think a court would be so worried about the health records they would be appointing a Special Master to make sure the health records are not seen by DOJ?
Of course not, they would have already put the ordinary Joe in jail pending trial with no possibility of bail. They would only be worried about the nuclear secrets and asking who the ordinary Joe has already shown them to.
Why does someone under criminal investigation get to choose his own judge; one he appointed? I mean, there was a judge and magistrate who issued the search warrant – any complaints about the search warrant should have gone back to them and any appeal heard by an appellate court.
That is the way it works for all other criminal defendants anyway. Trump is able to commit so many crimes in plain sight because he has so many people running interference for him and trying to delay and confuse the issues.
“Why does someone under criminal investigation get to choose his own judge . . .”
He doesn’t. Those judges are chosen *randomly*.
But, by all means, don’t allow such facts to dampen your rant.
Why are these people so angry and miserable?
I’m sure Turley will get to the news that some unnamed source claimed that Trump did have nuclear secret docs in MAL that was scooped up in the raid.
This is something that we can neither confirm nor deny its veracity.
Its a well timed leak to counter the judge’s order for a special master.
I’m sure those of the ‘Orange Man Bad’ camp will point to this with absolute trust.
However… based on the DoJ/FBI’s track record…. I doubt it.
So time to buy pop-corn futures and sit back and watch the show.
-G
yes, now he had foreign nuclear secrets, what will the leak be tomorrow?
@Anon,
The issue is more of what was really there. What is being leaked to the press. Is it real, or is it something to defend the DOJ/FBI.
The leak could have come from anyone, and the veracity is what is in question.
Remember the pee tape claims? Nobody with any sense believed it… but they ran the stories just the same.
I will wager that they found Putin’s private number in Trump’s notes, and thus reopen the Russian Collusion bit.
-G
Apparently the National Socialist Democrat Party doesn’t realize how close we are to the precipice.
I’m not MAGA and I support neither corrupt party however I will not tolerate tyrannical government.
They won’t win the Civil War. We will have no Fourth Reich.
This obsession with Trump is outrageous. They destroy everyone to get him.
I don’t like Trump but at this point my choice is National Socialist tyrannical government or mean tweets.
Guess which one I will chose.
@zzclancy
Here Here!
The Dems are continuing to attack Trump because they have nothing else to run on, but failed policies that have hurt this country.
Trump was right when he predicted the utter failings of Biden. But then again he wasn’t alone… even Obama nailed it.
Along w millions of non MAGA voters who saw Joe as a disaster waiting to happen.
-G
I have never liked Biden. He’s ALWAYS been a lying loudmouth corrupt THUG! Who the HELL takes showers with little girls? Other than Bill Clinton and Andrew Cuomo who the HELL goes around groping girls and women. Wait for it……Trump, Right?
Biden is a war hawk who never picked up a rifle when I did. Neither did Trump. To his credit Trump is no war hawk.
I wrote in Tulsi Gabbard. Russian Troll, Right? Sarcasm
I am still a JFK Classic Liberal. I’m not a member of the National Socialist Democrat Party. Unaffiliated
Classic Liberalism is NOT Progressive Marxism.
This NAZI nonsense with the Hitler speech will drive Unaffiliated, moderate Democrats, Never Trumpers,Republicans and anyone with a thinking brain to anyone other than candidates from the National Socialist Democrat Party. Even if the 2024 candidate is Mean Tweet Trump.
Don’t believe the main street media the only way for the Violent National Socialist Democrat Party to win in the midterms is with shenanigans, at that point we’ll have people with “scary black guns” voting with the ammo box.
Who the HELL wants Civil War with 700 million guns in circulation? The Violent National Socialist Democrat Party.
J6 was a riot not an insurrection. Next time when they bring guns it will be an insurrection.
@zzclancy,
Lets let cooler minds talk about this… 😉
There will be no revolution.
There is no clear line of delineation like you had during the Civil war.
On the right, you see people defending the right of people to speak their minds.
On the left, you see them defending the right of people to speak their minds as long as it agrees with their doctrine.
Trump is Trump. He created the hyperbolic POTUS where Biden fails at imitating him.
Biden however is so full of gaffs, its just joked away…
Biden is clearly insane. Or rather his dementia has progressed under the strain of the office.
That is no longer in doubt. He should be given a cognitive test along w a MRI of his brain in order to detect anomalies or lesions.
You can expect that post midterms there will be louder calls for both the 25th amendment and/or impeachment of his administration. (Not just Biden but Harris as well)
-G
That is what happens when you have no regard to the rule of law while under the woke cult hysteria.
The far leftists on MSNBC, have shown just how much they hate our Constitution, our laws, fiarness, our political system, and our system of justice. The destructive and divisive nature of their comments will ne day prove to be the cause of destruction and unrest in America. Not from those on the right, but from those on the left who heed these radicals. To call MSNBC a part of the mainstream media is a perversion of that term
@Jerome,
If you were to suddenly show up and arrest them, citing sedition charges… they will claim that they have 1st Amendment rights. Or claim you’re racist.
So they believe in the Constitution. At least when it comes to them.
Yet when it comes to the Orange Man… all things are fair… including ignoring that he has rights.
Turley, Dershowitz both hard core liberals support Trump… not because they like him. but because they believe in the rule of law.
You know she did the right thing when the cast of characters in the world of Liberal Media foam at the mouth.
In their world… anything goes as long as its to punish the Orange Man.
Orange Man Bad, therefore its ok to ignore the rule of law.
Tribe should be disbarred and sent to an old folks home… oh wait this isn’t Russia and non-Liberals support the constitution for people like him to spout his nonsense. If he were a Conservative Republican saying those things about Biden… well he’d be censored off FB, Twitter, and every other publication because liberal twits don’t agree with him, therefore he loses his 1A rights.
Where’s the condemnation of Kathy, what’s her name, (Griffin) where she calls for civil war. Wouldn’t that be grounds for Sedition charges under today’s DoJ/FBI?
You get the point.
The judge made the right call.
-G
Tribe is already in the Old Folks Home. He never did anything but “teach” at Harvard and participate as a lawyer in a few circuit level appeals (all of the important ones of which — Bush v Gore, Sun Myun Moon, the GE Superfund case — he lost). He was cashiered from Harvard three or four years ago.
Yeah, I know he’s up there. Assisted living more likely.
Maybe they should remove his internet privileges? (Paging nurse Rachet….)
Sorry bad joke.
Tribe can post whatever he likes as long as we can poke fun of it and not get banned for elder abuse.
I remember reading some of Tribe’s text when I borrowed a book from a friend while she was in law school. Just reading it to kill time.
He made some good points, but then again, she was a first year at the time.
A broad coalition of TDS sufferers, race baiters, and cynical self-aggrandizers all give sounds bites that the lefties lap up.
Ugly people performing for an ugly audience.
I’m going to use your line. “Ugly people performing for an ugly audience.”
One must choose between God and the State.
“One must choose between God and the State.”
How about neither.
How about the individual’s life belongs to the individual.
How about an individual not live his life genuflecting to any higher authority.
How about an individual not live his life genuflecting to any higher authority.
Is there a time in human history where individual natural rights were more secure when the majority of society believed there was no higher authority than themselves?
Olly: I don’t understand the question. (That’s not hostile. I sincerely don’t understand.)
Sam, what did you mean by …not live his life genuflecting to any higher authority? I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that man should not bend a knee to any authority higher than themselves. Perhaps you could clarify your comment.
What I mean is a worship of Man (as opposed to the state or God), the individual thinker and doer, that is captured eloquently by the “Ode to Man” from Sophocles’ play _Antigone_:
Wonders on earth are many, but none is more formidable than man.
He traverses the waves, driven by the winds of the storm,
and leaves his wake in a surge that could overwhelm him.
He drags his plough across the ground, the ancient immortal Earth,
and year upon year he turns the unwearied soil with beasts of burden.
Birds fly carefree on high, wild animals stalk the forests,
fish teem in the deep seas. Of all these the master is man,
man who surpasses all in the acuity of his mind. [. . .]
(https://antigonejournal.com/2021/03/music-of-sophocles/)
We can no longer expect sanity, or even decency from the unhinged Democratic clones who rant in lockstep and on cue whenever their power is challenged and their corruption exposed. As for Reid and Mystal, well you have here two elite black voices who have taken the money and forfeited their souls. Their tiny audience consists of outliers like them, so it’s doubtful that their corrupt voices even carry very far. Now that CNN seems to be coming to its senses and cutting lose the extremists, only MSNBC will have the pleasure, and the bad reputation, of housing the most discredited, biased, dishonest and dumbest hosts on the planet. Let’s see how far that gets their ratings.