Former White House attorney Ty Cobb said Monday that he thinks U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has “no intention” of letting the classified documents case in Florida take place before the presidential election in 2024.
In an interview on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” the former Trump White House legal official criticized the judge overseeing one of the two cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith, whose team indicted the former president on 37 criminal counts related to his alleged willful retention of national defense information, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
“I think that this judge has no intention of allowing this case to be tried before the election, and, in any event, I think her ruling last week was clear error, as Jack Smith has highlighted in the motion to reconsider,” Cobb said.
Last week, Smith appealed Cannon’s ruling that would allow Trump’s legal team to publicly disclose witness identities and their testimony to the court docket, potentially opening them up to harassment.
The Justice Department argued in a motion to reconsider that Cannon erred in her legal rationale for allowing Trump’s legal team to do so, a decision they say risks exposing some two dozen witnesses to harassment, as she requires no redactions.
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Cobb was unsure how Cannon would proceed but said he would not be surprised if Smith’s team sought her removal if she does not reconsider her ruling.
“I think if she doesn’t reconsider or if she reconsiders and stays the course on that ruling, that the special counsel will mandamus her and the 11th Circuit will reverse her quickly and perhaps even remove her,” he said.
“Certainly if she grants access to classified documents that the government doesn’t believe is appropriate under the Classified Procedures Act, the government has a right to an interlocutory appeal to go straight to the 11th Circuit and seek relief on that and also likely to seek her removal.”
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