Trump-appointed judge tries to let Trump off for stealing state secrets

Now this is judicial activism—on steroids. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against convicted felon Donald Trump, dismissed all 40 criminal charges in that case—31 of which were brought under the Espionage Act. Her choice here is as lawless a decision as the Supreme Court’s recent declaration that the president is king. (Well, as long as the president is Trump.) In fact, Cannon picked up where Justice Clarence Thomas left off in the Supreme Court ruling that granted Trump total immunity. In his concurrence, he went even further than his Trumpy fellow justices, saying, “I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been ‘established by Law,’ as the Constitution requires.” Never mind that the Supreme Court had previously—and famously—decided otherwise. Cannon’s dismissal, Slate’s legal expert Mark Joseph Stern writes, is an “extreme outlier view with no basis in precedent.” It didn’t just have no basis in precedent; it flies in the face of established law. As Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University, writes, Thomas “laid the table and Judge Cannon took a seat.” The out-of-control Supreme Court majority has done everything it could to derail all of the Trump cases—including the New York, Washington, D.C, and Georgia trials—by declaring Trump immune from actions during his term in office. Now Cannon, using Thomas’s sweeping argument, essentially cleared Trump of what he did after he was in office as well. Stealing classified information and obstructing the government’s attempts to recover it  The government, in the form of duly appointed special counsel Jack Smith, will most likely appeal the dismissal to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and can—and absolutely must—ask for a new judge. The 11th Circuit will almost certainly overturn her ruling, Stern says. Or, as he speculates, “Smith could view Cannon’s decision as a golden opportunity to refile this case in D.C., where the alleged theft of classified documents began, and escape Cannon’s courtroom for good.” Another option raised by Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, is “handing the Mar-A-Lago case to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, re-indict, and hope it gets assigned to a more competent judge than Cannon.” The only good thing in Cannon’s dismissal is that she did it now instead of months from now. She’s done everything in her power to delay this case, ensuring that there was no way it could be heard and decided before the election. That’s still likely true, but in another court and in a possible new venue, it could be reignited and relitigated before voters’ eyes, though a trial is very unlikely before November. And it may prove to be a cautionary tale for voters because if Trump gets another term in office, Thomas and Cannon will be the norm across the judiciary. RELATED STORIES: Clarence Thomas previews how he'll get rid of Trump's federal charges Donald Trump indicted for illegal retention of classified documents Federal judge dismisses Trump classified documents case Campaign Action