Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon handed prosecutors in his Mar-a-Lago case a shocking ultimatum on Monday.

The MAGA-friendly federal judge who keeps siding with Donald Trump in his Mar-a-Lago classified records case has forced prosecutors to make a stark choice: allow jurors to see a huge trove of national secrets or let him go.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’sultimatum Monday night came as a surprise twist in what could have been a simple order; one merely asking federal prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers for proposed jury instructions at the upcoming trial.

But as she has done repeatedly, Cannon used this otherwise innocuous legal step as yet another way to swing the case wildly in favor of the man who appointed her while he was president.

Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith must now choose whether to allow jurors at the upcoming criminal trial to peruse the many classified records found at the former president’s South Florida mansion or give jurors instructions that would effectively order them to acquit him.

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
    45·
    3 months ago

    Can she really do that, force the jury without security clearance to view top secret documents? Seems bullshit to me.

    But what are the options? Obviously she says to let Trump go if the jury can’t see the docs. If he gets the jury see the docs, do they have to get security clearance? They have to sign an NDA of some sort?

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
      28·
      3 months ago

      Hopefully they can appeal and just provide summaries or redacted documents. Or get security clearance for jurors, sure.

      There has to be a way to convict someone for stealing state secrets without sharing those state secrets publicly.

      If it’s illegal to share classified documents, including to jury members, and the jury can’t convict without seeing all the info on the classified documents, then it is just legal to share classified documents, you would be unable to prosecute. That would be crazy.

    • Professorozone@lemmy.world
      4·
      3 months ago

      I know right? What circular reasoning this is. The government is concerned about keeping our secrets safe, so they ask for the former president to return them and must force the issue when he doesn’t, but to keep the secrets safe the judge wants them to divulge the secrets?

      I do not see the relevance of the actual contents. It could have been a government encryption device or a cell phone or something.

      As an alternative couldn’t they redact the crucial parts? Ex. “Submarine x, with a periscope depth of xxx is to be deployed in a xxx configuration to secure the xxx area.” Pretty easy to see the reason for the secrecy without giving the details. Although there are probably situations where this wouldn’t work.