Cannon seemed to invite Trump to raise the argument again at trial, where Jack Smith canāt appeal, expert says
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday rejected one of former President Donald Trumpās motions to dismiss his classified documents case.
Cannon shot down Trumpās motion arguing that the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague when applied to a former president.
Cannon after a daylong hearingĀ issued an orderĀ saying some of Trumpās arguments warrant āserious considerationā but wrote that no judge has ever found the statute unconstitutional. Cannon said that ārather than prematurely decide now,ā she denied the motion so it could be āraised as appropriate in connection with jury-instruction briefing and/or other appropriate motions.ā
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āThe Judgeās ruling was virtually incomprehensible, even to those of us who speak ālegalā as our native language,ā former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote onĀ Substack, calling part of her ruling ādeliberately dumb.ā
āThe good news here is temporary,ā Vance wrote. āItās what Iād call an ugly win for the government. The Judge dismissed the vagueness argumentābut just for today. She did it āwithout prejudice,ā which means that Trumpās lawyers could raise the argument again later in the case. In fact, the Judge seemed to do just that in her order, essentially inviting the defense to raise the argument again at trial.ā
To clarify for future confused readers, most of us arenāt mad that she is denying the motions to dismiss, far from it, but weāre mad that she is doing so in a way that allows the defence to use these same ridiculous arguments in court.
The first request is that the āEspionage Actā is too vague to enforce, which is pretty much not how laws work at all. Generally the more vague it is: the more illegal activities fall under it.
The second request is that the Presidential Records Act allows the Trump Admin to decide which documents were personal at will and therefor gives him complete immunity. Which, again, is pure idiocy, but Judge Canon hasnāt even given a ruling on that motion.