Judge Aileen Cannon appears to side with prosecutors as Trump's lawyers try to block Jack Smith using boxes of classified documents seized during the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago
- Judge Cannon heard challenges to Jack Smith's funding in her Florida court
- She also will weigh Smith's renewed request for a gag order on Trump
Federal judge Aileen Cannon appeared to side with prosecutors when lawyers for Donald Trump raised issues with the warrant that justified the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
Emil Bove, a lawyer for Trump, who nominated Cannon to her lifetime appointment, raised objections to the warrant at a hearing in Cannon's courtroom, on the third day of arguments over the classified documents case.
Without the material, prosecutors would be denied use of a trove of information that agents found scattered in rooms around Trump's private club.
'I have a hard time seeing what more needed to be included,' Cannon said when Bove complained that the warrant was overbroad and gave agents entree to the sprawling building.
(Prosecutors also reportedly questioned witnesses about a locked closet and a 'hidden room' that they did not examine during the August 2022 search).
Bove argued that the warrant wasn't sufficient to cover the massive property in West Palm Beach, for a search that agents carried out while Trump was away.
'We’re not talking about the search of a single-family home in the suburbs,' he said, CNN reported.
Judge Aileen Cannon appeared to express satisfaction with a warrant that justified the Mar-a-Lago search
Cannon didn't issue an immediate ruling, but made comments skeptical of the claim by Trump lawyers that the warrant, which was approved by a magistrate judge, was unconstitutional.
On the issue of whether the warrant was 'particularized' enough, she said it 'seems like it is.'
But there was yet another clash with prosecutor David Harbach, who accused Trump's team of 'hijacking the hearing,' something Cannon called 'not fair.'
The nod from Cannon toward the warrant came a day after a Harbach, a top prosecutor who has taken on some of the nation's top political corruption cases dramatically apologized to the judge as Jack Smith's team battled over a proposed gag order Monday.
Harbach, who led cases against former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell issued the stunning statement inside Cannon's courtroom Monday, in a case where Trump critics complain she has repeatedly ruled against the government.
'I just want to apologize about earlier,” Harbach said following a contentious courtroom exchange. “I didn’t mean to be unprofessional. I’m sorry about that.”
It came after he appeared to bristle at questions from Cannon, a U.S. district judge in Florida, in response to her questions about the prosecution's claims of threats to law enforcement personnel and Trump's language about the FBI that fed into the government's request to modify his terms of release.
'I don’t appreciate your tone,' the judge snapped at one point. The judge told him she would 'appreciate decorum at all times,' then warned, 'If you aren’t able to do that, I’m sure one of your colleagues can take up arguing this motion.'
The Harvard Law-trained prosecutor once worked for former FBI Director James Comey, a longtime Trump target.
Prosecutors want to modify Trump's conditions of release to prohibit public attacks on law enforcement.
It comes after Trump accused the FBI of planning for his assassination based on documents spelling out use of force protocols during the raid at Mar-a-Lago that uncovered documents marked classified at his Florida home.
'Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE. NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE — 25TH AMENDMENT!' Trump posted.
Trump also wrote in a fundraising email to supporters: 'Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.'
Prosecutors used those threats to justify their request for a gag, saying it created a 'grossly misleading impression' and accusing Trump of 'smearing' federal agents who executed the search.
'These deceptive and inflammatory claims expose the law enforcement professionals who are involved in this case to unjustified and unacceptable risks,' they wrote.
Prosecutors cited the threat to law enforcement of people who might be inspired to carry out physical attacks, prompting questions from Cannon about a linkage.
The clash came as Cannon heard more challenges to special counsel Jack Smith's authority on Monday – this time asking if there was any limit to the congressional funding that supports his office.
The Trump-appointed judge made the comment at a hearing in her Fort Pierce, Florida courtroom as Trump's lawyer argued that Smith's funding is contrary to the rules governing congressional appropriations.
It is one of multiple challenges Trump's team have challenged to the prosecutor leading the classified documents case against him. (Smith is also heading the January 6 case based in Washington, D.C. that is on hold while the Supreme Court considers Trump's immunity claims.)
The judge's comment came at a hearing where Trump lawyer Emil Bove argued that Smith's funding has been against laws governing funding from the get-go.
'Is there any cap to the funding?' Cannon asked him.
Trump's lawyers want to disallow boxes of evidence seized from Mar-a-Lago during an FBI raid
Trump's team argued special counsel Jack Smith's appointment was unconstitutional. On Monday they argued his funding violated appropriations statutes
'There is no check on the scope of what's going on here,' Bove responded.
She also called the amounts the Justice Department spent on special counsels 'significant.'
Speaking for Smith's office, assistant special counsel James Pearce said it is the 'full commitment of the DOJ' that the special counsel's office has the funding to continue the prosecution.
Cannon asked Pearce to clarify if the budget for the case so far was $9 million.
'But when it's limitless, there is a separation of powers concern,' Cannon said.
Pearce said DOJ had $1 billion at its disposal even if the current funding stream got changed.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers were back in court after facing off in Cannon's courtroom on Friday, where she grilled defense lawyers and asked that they explain an 'ominous' argument after they challenged Smith's appointment.
Bove said the law was being applied in a way to grant AG Merrick Garland 'the power to appoint a shadow government.'
Cannon's willingness to grant Trump lawyers time to argue their motions in open court, while also hearing 'amicus' pleas by outside parties, has prompted outside criticism that she is allowing Trump's team to stall the case.
The government has allowed the use of special prosecutors in one form or another for more than a hundred years, and defense lawyers for Hunter Biden failed in a similar effort against the use of the authority by special counsel David Weiss.
David Aronberg, the state attorney for Palm Beach County and a Democrat, called it 'mind-boggling.'
Cannon postponed a May trial date and has not scheduled a new one, raising the likelihood Trump won't face trial in his classified documents case before the November elections.
He also will hear arguments in her courtroom Monday about Smith's renewed request for a gag order, after Trump accused FBI agents of having a plan to assassinate him based on a boilerplate passage from a document listing preparations for a search on Mar-a-Lago.
Trump has called the gags on his speech in other cases unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed a narrow gag order in the D.C. case, and New York Jude Juan Merchan imposed one in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial.
