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Split Thread Trump Document indictment (as opposed to other indictments)

Hercules56 said:
Yes but this decision does not favor Trump, so Cannon decided to ignore it, cuz she is a MAGAt.
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The most relevant section:
Thus, if Special Counsel Mueller is a principal officer, his appointment was in violation of the Appointments Clause because he was not appointed by the President with advice and consent of the Senate. Binding precedent instructs that Special Counsel Mueller is an inferior officer under the Appointments Clause.

An inferior officer is one "whose work is directed and supervised at some level by others who were appointed by Presidential nomination with the advice and consent of the Senate." Edmond v. United States , 520 U.S. 651, 663, 117 S.Ct. 1573, 137 L.Ed.2d 917 (1997). In Edmond , the Supreme Court applied three factors to determine whether an officer was inferior: degree of oversight, final decision-making authority, and removability. Id. at 663–66, 117 S.Ct. 1573. According to Miller, those considerations point to Special Counsel Mueller being a principal, rather than inferior, officer because the Office of Special Counsel regulations impose various limitations on the Attorney General's ability to exercise effective oversight of the Special Counsel. But as foreshadowed in this court's opinion in In re Sealed Case , 829 F.2d 50 (D.C. Cir. 1987), a supervisor's ability to rescind provisions assuring an officer's independence can render that officer inferior. There, this court recognized that an independent counsel was an inferior officer because his office was created pursuant to a regulation and "the Attorney General may rescind this regulation at any time, thereby abolishing the Office of Independent Counsel."
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ETA: meant as a reply to original link poster, not Herc.
 
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W.D.Clinger said:
On 11 December 2023, Hunter Biden filed a MOTION TO DISMISS THE INDICTMENT BECAUSE SPECIAL COUNSEL WEISS WAS UNLAWFULLY APPOINTED AND THIS PROSECUTION VIOLATES THE APPROPRIATIONS CLAUSE, whose first sentence reads as follows:



The second paragraph begins with this sentence:



On 30 January 2024, Hunter Biden's attorneys replied to the government's response to that motion.

On 12 April 2024, District Judge Maryellen Noreika denied the motion. In addition to ruling that DOJ regulations did not confer a right on which Hunter Biden could rely, the judge ruled that the appropriations were constitutional:



As I have highlighted, Judge Noreika cited Jack Smith as one of six precedents showing "The use of the permanent appropriation to fund special counsel appointed after the independent counsel statutes lapsed is well established."

IANAL, but I believe this is an example of a judge's ruling that runs counter to the second part of Judge Cannon's decision, in which Cannon decided Jack Smith's funding was unconstitutional.
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referencing a motion from the hunter biden case would be gold
 
Ziggurat said:
I keep seeing quotes of other people saying the court ruled on this before. But I never seem to find quotes of an actual court itself making such a ruling. And the longer that goes on, the more I suspect that no such ruling exists.

And Walsh was appointed special counsel under the Ethics in Government Act Title VI, which is now expired. Under Cannon's ruling, his appointment is not equivalent to Smith's, so the validity of his appointment does not indicate that Smith's is valid.
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John Roberts Could be Aileen Cannon's Undoing

Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts was instrumental in creating special counsel regulations that were struck down by Judge Aileen Cannon in the classified documents case, a legal scholar has said.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, found the appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee Trump's federal trials unconstitutional.

Department of Justice regulations allow for the appointment of special counsels in cases where the U.S Attorney General believes that they themselves may have a conflict of interest and need an independent attorney to lead a prosecution.

Norm Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor for The Atlantic magazine, recalled that Roberts was among those who drafted the rules. And Ornstein wrote that Cannon's ruling is unlikely to find favor in the U.S Supreme Court.

Ornstein recalled that in 1999, Republican senators, George Mitchell and Bob Dole, asked him to co chair a project on alternatives to the Independent Counsel statute that was expiring.
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Hercules56 said:
Yes but this decision does not favor Trump, so Cannon decided to ignore it, cuz she is a MAGAt.
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New in Harvard JLPP Per Curiam: What We Did and Did Not Argue in United States v. Trump

Second, the Nixon Court supported its decision by expressly relying on several statutory provisions, and on regulations put into effect in 1973 by Acting Attorney General Robert Bork.[9] Although the former statutory provisions remain in effect, the latter regulations were superseded by the Ethics in Government Act (1978), which created independent counsels. The 1978 act, because it was not re-authorized by Congress, expired in 1999. Subsequently, new regulations were put into effect in 1999 by Attorney General Reno. The Nixon-Court-era regulations for special prosecutors and the modern, now-in-force Reno regulations for special counsels are not the same. For that reason alone, Nixon is not and cannot be controlling: Nixon relied upon federal regulations which are no longer in effect.
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*case begins*

Pundits: "This is an open and shut case."

Cannon: "I need a definition of 'open' within 45 days' time."

*definition provided*

Cannon: "Does the government have a definition of 'shut?' I grant a 30 day window for submission to this court."

*sigh*

*Definition submitted*

Cannon: "Good. Thank you. However, this court is not seeing the relationship. I'm sending this back and giving the government six weeks to inform on the definition of 'open and shut' and- -"

Smith: "Oh, come ON!"

Cannon: "AND advise the prosecution to not waste any more of this court's time."

*Definition of 'open and shut' provided. Also 'case.' Also 'open and shut case.' Also 'a case that is open and shut,' 'a case that is shut following it being open,' 'a case is a wish your heart makes,' and 'a pretty case is like a melody'*

Cannon: "Relevance?"

*Also a Whitman's Sampler*
 
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There is legal value in forcing courts to distinguish between two cases that seem similar. The desire to do so in this case is clearly political, but abstractly that's how all court cases work. If Case A is different enough from Case B to decide it differently, the judiciary should explain why. Then that explanation holds for future similar controversies.

Until the Supreme Court decides none of that matters.
 
Segnosaur said:
I am not opposed to Hunter Biden doing this.

But.. I do think that his "challenge" is being done for political rather than valid legal reasons. (ie. he knows it will ultimately be unsuccessful but it will expose republican hypocrisy, perhaps force the supreme court to act on any appeals sooner than later, etc.)
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1) Judge Cannon ruled that Jack Smith's work was unconstitutional because Congress hasn't appropriated money for special counsels. This would apply equally to Hunter Biden's case.
2) DoJ regulations specify that a person appointed as a special counsel must be someone who is outside the government. In Hunter Biden's case, the special counsel is also a federal prosecutor, meaning that DoJ regulations were violated in the appointment of the special prosecutor.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
She also ruled that this only applies to Smith and not any other Special Counsel assigned in exactly the same way
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She can say that, but it has no judicial effect. None of her rulings reaches any further than her own court anyway. She cannot limit how other trial courts decide or why.

Norman Alexander said:
She has set a precedent for all similar cases. Doesn't matter that they are not exactly the case before her.
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Trial courts cannot set binding precedent, only appeals courts. However any court can refer to the reasoning in any case that administers the same law and use it for non-binding support. By incorporating the same reasoning as Judge Cannon, H. Biden causes it to be almost certainly reviewed by two different circuit courts.
 
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JayUtah said:
She can say that, but it has no judicial effect. None of her rulings reaches any further than her own court anyway. She cannot limit how other trial courts decide or why.



Trial courts cannot set binding precedent, only appeals courts. However any court can refer to the reasoning in any case that administers the same law and use it for non-binding support. By incorporating the same reasoning as Judge Cannon, H. Biden causes it to be almost certainly reviewed by two different circuit courts.
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Maybe she thinks she's on the SCOTUS now.
 
Resume said:
Maybe she thinks she's on the SCOTUS now.
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I'm sure she's auditioning for one of the spots that Justice Alito or Justice Thomas will vacate by retiring in a second Donald Trump term.

However, the Supreme Court isn't especially consistent on the scope of their own rulings. Bush v. Gore (2000) was postured as a decision in one specific case, not to be used as a precedent in any other case. Of course it's been cited in numerous petitions that try to get federal control over state election processes. Conversely, Trump v. United States (2024) tries to say, "We don't care about the immediate past or present circumstances; we only care about what might happen hypothetically in the future."
 
Paul Rosenzweig's opinion

At The Atlantic, senior Counsel in the investigation of Bill Clinton Paul Rosenzweig wrote, "On the merits, her opinion is a poor one, ignoring history and precedent. It will almost certainly be reversed on appeal. Even so, her actions will surely delay Trump’s trial and may even prevent it completely, should Trump return to power and dismiss the case before a verdict is reached." According to his biographical notes, "He is a Senior Editor of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy and as a member of the Advisory Committee to the ABA’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. He also serves on the District of Columbia Bar’s ethics Rules Review Committee and has a private practice within the District."
 
Chris_Halkides said:
At The Atlantic, senior Counsel in the investigation of Bill Clinton Paul Rosenzweig wrote, "On the merits, her opinion is a poor one, ignoring history and precedent. It will almost certainly be reversed on appeal. Even so, her actions will surely delay Trump’s trial and may even prevent it completely, should Trump return to power and dismiss the case before a verdict is reached." According to his biographical notes, "He is a Senior Editor of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy and as a member of the Advisory Committee to the ABA’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. He also serves on the District of Columbia Bar’s ethics Rules Review Committee and has a private practice within the District."
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I think that's been Cannon's objective all along.
 
Mo lasses

Stacyhs said:
I think that's been Cannon's objective all along.
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I think that she has been slow walking this case for a while. In May attorney Brian Greer wrote at the NYT, "Still, it is inexcusable that she is utterly failing to keep the case moving along in a fair but timely manner...Measured against these goals, Judge Cannon has made almost no progress over the past 11 months. That is shocking and indefensible...Outside of the unwarranted delays, Judge Cannon has shown a repeated willingness to entertain extreme arguments from the Trump legal team."
 
Chris_Halkides said:
I think that she has been slow walking this case for a while. In May attorney Brian Greer wrote at the NYT, "Still, it is inexcusable that she is utterly failing to keep the case moving along in a fair but timely manner...Measured against these goals, Judge Cannon has made almost no progress over the past 11 months. That is shocking and indefensible...Outside of the unwarranted delays, Judge Cannon has shown a repeated willingness to entertain extreme arguments from the Trump legal team."
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It's been obvious for a long time.
 
Trump has filed 100-million-dollar for damages during the Mar a Lago FBI search.

Lawyers for Donald Trump have filed a $100 million claim with the Justice Department, alleging that the federal search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 was inappropriate and hurt Trump’s reputation, an attempt to keep alive the narrative that the former president has been persecuted by a biased Biden administration.

The administrative claim for alleged damages is unlikely to gain steam given that the search was approved by a federal judge after months of investigation and negotiations with Trump’s lawyers. The claim has been filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows people wronged by government employees to seek compensation from federal agencies.
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Stacyhs said:
Trump has filed 100-million-dollar for damages during the Mar a Lago FBI search.
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Er, rather there is a claim made through OMB pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act. I haven't seen anything on PACER yet, so all we have is the memorandum attached to the OMB claim form.

The memorandum attempts to relitigate everything that was rejected when the search warrant was upheld on appeal. That's res judicata, open and shut. However, the memorandum then goes on to try to apply some of the more legally hilarious parts of Judge Cannon's dismissal order, which is not a final order and disposition of the case since Smith has an appeal pending as of right. Any actual federal court action Trump might want to bring would be unripe for adjudication on any grounds predicated on the dismissal order.
 
Like Justice Thomas, Cannon doesn't seem keen on following reporting rules:
Judge Aileen Cannon Failed to Disclose a Right-Wing Junket

Cannon, whose oversight of the Donald Trump classified documents case has garnered widespread criticism, has repeatedly violated a rule requiring that federal judges disclose their attendance at private seminars.
Federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the controversial jurist who tossed out the classified documents criminal case against Donald Trump in July, failed to disclose her attendance at a May 2023 banquet funded by a conservative law school.

Cannon went to an event in Arlington, Va. honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, according to documents obtained from the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University. At a lecture and private dinner, she sat among members of Scalia’s family, fellow Federalist Society members and more than 30 conservative federal judges. Organizers billed the event as “an excellent opportunity to connect with judicial colleagues.”

A 2006 rule, intended to shine a light on judges’ attendance at paid seminars that could pose conflicts or influence decisions, requires them to file disclosure forms for such trips within 30 days and make them public on the court’s website. It’s not the first time she has failed to fully comply with the rule. In 2021 and 2022, Cannon took weeklong trips to the luxurious Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, for legal colloquiums sponsored by George Mason, which named its law school for Scalia thanks to $30 million in gifts that conservative judicial kingmaker Leonard Leo helped organize.

Current rates for standard rooms at Sage Lodge can exceed $1,000 per night, depending on the season. With both Montana trips, Cannon’s required seminar disclosures were not posted until NPR reporters asked about the omissions this year as part of a broader national investigation of gaps in judicial disclosures.
Cannon did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
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Stacyhs said:
Like Justice Thomas, Cannon doesn't seem keen on following reporting rules:
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  • Nothing to see here, move along.
  • Rules are for little people.
  • Originalist interpretation.
  • [Bright light] Look over there!
  • Ruth Bader Ginsberg did the same.
  • That form was being revised.

That's enough for now, I'm beginning to tear up and I'm thinking maybe death is preferable.
 
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