Aileen Cannon Stalls Trump Case Again

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon paused deadlines in former President Donald Trump's classified documents case on Saturday following the U.S. Supreme Court's recent immunity ruling.

Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has pleaded not guilty to Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith's indictment where it's alleged that he retained classified materials after he left the White House in January 2021 and then obstructed the federal attempt to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago resort residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump has maintained his innocence in the case.

On Saturday, Cannon, who is presiding over the case and was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020, paused a handful of deadlines based on whether or not there should be more briefing on the effect of the Court's immunity ruling involving the former president.

"Temporarily granting in part and reserving ruling in part on Defendant Trump's Motion for Supplemental Briefing on Presidential Immunity and a Partial Stay 664. In order to allow for full briefing on the Motion, and consistent with the Special Counsel's request for the standard response period, the Court stays the following impending deadlines," the paperless order read.

This comes after Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a 6-3 majority ruling on Monday that Trump is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his "official acts" carried out in office in a ruling connected to his federal 2020 election interference case.

According to the order, Cannon is pausing deadlines for "Defendants' Rule 16 expert disclosures, currently due July 8, 2024; Defendants' reciprocal discovery, currently due July 10, 2024; and Special Counsel's CIPA §§ 5-6 submission, currently due July 10, 2024, although the Special Counsel may proceed with filing should it so elect."

This means Cannon is setting a two-week timeline for Smith and Trump to brief her on whether there should be more briefing on immunity. The special counsel will have until July 18 to respond to Trump's motion to stay and request for supplemental briefing on his presidential immunity ruling.

Newsweek has reached out to the DOJ via online form and Trump's spokesperson via email for comment on Saturday.

This comes after Trump's lawyers argued that there should be two changes to his classified documents case in a filing on Friday.

First, they asked Cannon for permission to file a supplemental briefing so they could make their argument about how the Court's decision may affect the case. They asked for a July 26 deadline to provide his opening brief and a separate deadline of August 23 for the special counsel's office to respond. They also asked if Trump could have until September 9 to provide his reply.

In addition, they asked Cannon to stay all other proceedings in the case, with the exception of a pending gag order motion. They wrote that the stay is "appropriate to prevent further exploitation of judicial institutions and resources by Executive Branch personnel in connection with the shameful ongoing lawfare campaign."

However, there has not been evidence that President Joe Biden has influenced any of Trump's criminal investigations.

Meanwhile, prosecutors want Cannon to impose a gag order on the former president for falsely claiming that the FBI was instructed to shoot him if necessary while conducting a raid at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 to retrieve the classified documents. That was based on an erroneous interpretation of a standard FBI search order request, which states that agents are trained to use lethal force. It is a printed formula that is standard for FBI search warrant requests.

However, the FBI said in a statement that the wording of the warrant was standard and the phrase "deadly force" was also included when agents searched Biden's Delaware home for classified materials.

"The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force. No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter," the agency's statement said.

Saturday's order comes as Cannon continues to face criticism, largely along party lines, for delaying the trial and not setting a start date. Cannon has been accused by legal analysts of being too favorable to the former president and has had frequent clashes with Smith.

Responding to Cannon indefinitely postponing the trial, attorney Neama Rahmani previously told Newsweek that he was not surprised by the judge's actions.

"Judge Cannon has ruled in Trump's favor at almost every possible turn, so I'm not surprised that she delayed the trial indefinitely," he said in May. "She is inexperienced and seems in over her head. She's made a number of bizarre rulings that aren't supported by logic or the law and she has already been overturned by the Eleventh Circuit multiple times."

Since the highest court's immunity ruling, Trump's legal team has made efforts to either dismiss or have delays in his other legal cases.

Trump's legal team asked Judge Juan Merchan to push back his July 11 sentencing in his hush money case, which he agreed to. Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump denies any wrongdoing and Daniels' allegations of an extramarital sexual encounter. Meanwhile, Trump's legal team argued that the Supreme Court's ruling could mean the conviction should be overturned.

However, some legal experts have cast doubt that the immunity ruling would have a substantial impact on the hush money case or the Georgia case into his alleged election interference.

In Georgia, Trump and and 18 others were indicted last August and were accused of trying to overturn the former president's 2020 election loss to Biden in the state. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has maintained his innocence.