Mar-a-Lago raid

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Judge Aileen Cannon’s order suspending one of the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump, at least until a court-appointed official can review documents the FBI seized from Trump, is a trainwreck of judicial reasoning. Cannon mangles the law so completely that it’s hard to know where to even begin in criticizing her opinion in Trump v. United States.

For starters, Cannon, who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump days after he lost the 2020 election, argues fairly explicitly that Trump is entitled to special rules that apply to virtually no other criminal defendant, because he used to be a powerful person. Seriously, Cannon argued that the rules don’t apply to Trump in large part because, as a former president, he faces “reputational harm” that is of a “decidedly different order of magnitude” than that facing another person who may be indicted.

This opinion is an affront to anyone who believes that all Americans, whether a pauper or a former president, are subject to the same laws.
On a practical level, it could also allow Cannon or other judges to delay this criminal investigation into Trump indefinitely. Cannon’s opinion is not simply wrong, it plays with legal concepts, such as executive privilege, which she seems to barely understand. And it races to grant relief to Trump that could impose countless hurdles between the Justice Department and its ability to investigate Trump.

Indeed, just the portions of Cannon’s opinion dealing with executive privilege, which make up only a small part of the decision, are complicated and uncertain enough that they could potentially force months or even years of litigation to resolve. And, Cannon ordered the United States to halt its criminal investigation into the documents seized from Trump — something she decidedly does not have the power to do — until after the process she set up to review those documents is complete...

Because Cannon’s opinion is so riddled with legal errors — my analysis of the opinion only scratches the surface of the many problems with this decision — a higher court could potentially permit DOJ to resume the investigation on appeal. But the DOJ’s first line of appeal is the 11th Circuit, a GOP-dominated court where six of the 11 active judges were appointed by Donald Trump. In the fairly likely event that the DOJ draws a panel of Trump appointees (or other similarly ideological judges) to hear its appeal, that panel could sit on the case for months before issuing a decision that mirrors Cannon’s. And what then, appeal to the Supreme Court, where Republican appointees enjoy a 6-3 supermajority?

That “special master” decision could delay the FBI investigation into Trump by years - Vox

• Another partisan judge handing out free get out of jail cards