Aileen Cannon Has Stern Response for Jack Smith

Florida Judge Aileen Cannon had a stern response for Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith and prosecutors in a filing posted Sunday in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case.

In the filing from the Southern District of Florida’s West Palm Beach Division, Cannon, appointed by Trump in 2020, said she’s “disappointed” that Smith asked her to keep information from the public in order to protect grand jury secrecy and witness safety. She contended that Smith ignored similar concerns at other times during the case.

In Sunday’s five-page order, Cannon “granted in part and denied in part” Smith’s two motions related to sealing and redacting defense filings in the trial into whether Trump mishandled classified documents that he took with him to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving the White House in January 2021.

Cannon states that “nowhere in that explanation is there any basis to conclude that the Special Counsel could not have defended the integrity of his Office while simultaneously preserving the witness-safety and concerns he has repeatedly told the Court, and maintains to this day, are of serious consequence, and which the Court has endeavored with diligence to accommodate in its multiple Orders on sealing/redaction. The Court is disappointed in these developments.”

The order continued: “The Court deems it necessary to express concern over the Special Counsel’s treatment of certain sealed materials in this case.”

Newsweek reached out to Smith’s office and the Trump campaign via email Sunday afternoon. This story will be updated with any provided comments.

Cannon has indefinitely suspended the start of the trial while other legal disputes related to the case are settled. Her decision sparked widespread backlash from legal experts who have accused the judge of showing bias toward the former president during proceedings.

In Sunday’s order, Cannon cites Smith’s previous position on unsealing documents “in order to publicly and transparently refute defense allegations of prosecutorial misconduct raised in pretrial motions.”

“In two separate filings related to sealing, the Special Counsel stated, without qualification, that he had no objection to full unsealing of previously sealed docket entries related to allegations of prosecutorial misconduct,” Cannon stated. “In light of that repeated representation, and in the absence of any defense objection, the Court unsealed those materials consistent with the general presumption in favor of public access.”

Sunday’s filing by Cannon also denies proposed redactions by Trump’s legal team. However, the judge granted the former president a merits’ hearing on the redactions in another motion. Trump co-defendants in the classified documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, are also listed on the order.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, faces 40 federal felony counts in the classified documents indictment, which were unsealed in June 2023. His Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in August 2022.

The former president also faces federal charges, brought by Smith’s office, stemming from the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

Trump has been in Manhattan court in recent weeks as the trial plays out in his criminal hush money trial in which he’s accused of falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. He also faces 10 state felony charges in Georgia, accused of attempting to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to President Joe Biden.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing in his slew of legal challenges and has repeatedly accused prosecutors of attempting to interfere with his November reelection chances.