“Unbelievable”: Cannon scolds Jack Smith for warning that Trump is trying to “manipulate” her

Judge Aileen Cannon, the U.S. district court judge presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, appeared to reprimand the special counsel after he alerted her that the former president was also trying to delay his 2020 election subversion case in Washington, D.C. and warned her not to “be manipulated,” The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports. Cannon’s response to the special counsel’s Thursday filing was curt, indicating that the warning was too long. “Except as authorized by Court order, the substantive content of any such notice (or response) may not exceed 200 words and may not be used as a surreply absent leave of Court,” Cannon wrote in the paperless order. “Future non-compliant noticed or unauthorized filings will be stricken without further notice.” The notice the special counsel filed early Thursday amounted to 237 words, Talking Points Memo found.

Cannon signaled at a Wednesday hearing that she would likely add another delay to the trial, which is currently slated to begin in May, in accordance with Trump’s attorneys’ argument that they needed one, in part, because of the D.C. federal case’s schedule. But federal prosecutors intensified their effort to keep the May 2024 trial date with one prosecutor arguing during the hearing that, because the D.C. trial date could also shift, basing this case’s schedule on it could possibly prompt greater delays. Hours after the hearing, Trump asked the judge in the D.C. case to pause the prosecution until his motion to dismiss the case on the grounds of presidential immunity is resolved, a request that could take months to go through multiple appeals. That move prompted prosecutors to submit the notice, demonstrating Trump’s request as evidence of “his overriding interest in delaying both trials at any cost.”

Former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said it was “unbelievable” that Cannon chose to criticize Smith’s team after “the Trump defense pulls a fast one and gets called on it by the Special Counsel.” Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance tweeted that Cannon “chastised prosecutors for violating word limits & showed no interest that Trump’s lawyers asked her to delay the MAL case because of the DC case, without telling her they’d filed a motion to delay in DC… Special Counsel may regret not trying to recuse her straight off the bat when they had a shot.”