Judge Aileen Cannon Just Handed Donald Trump a Massive Favor

The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents lawsuit just did the former president a massive favor in his efforts to delay the trial.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon—a Trump appointee—ruled Tuesday that special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which has been investigating Trump for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, must release some classified information to Trump’s lawyers during discovery. Those details include the names of certain potential witnesses, the conduct of some individuals (which they haven’t been charged for), and the FBI code name for a separate investigation.

Smith has opposed unsealing certain documents, arguing that doing so would give Trump an opportunity to seek even more information. That would delay the trial, which is currently scheduled to begin in May.

“Putting the special counsel to his proof and requiring him to turn square corners in discovery is likely to slow and prolong the proceedings, advantaging Defendants’ strategy of delay,” Anthony Alfieri, a University of Miami School of Law professor, told Newsweek in a story published Thursday.

Cannon’s decision “indicates that she intends to closely scrutinize the evidentiary grounds put forward by the Special Counsel” when Smith tries to redact or keep sealed documents requested by Trump’s lawyers, Alfieri said.

Trump was charged in Florida with keeping national defense secrets, making false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, among other things, for hoarding classified materials at Mar-a-Lago. His body man, Walt Nauta, and a Mar-a-Lago employee Carlos De Oliveira have also been charged.

Cannon received nationwide scrutiny at the start of the investigation after she appeared favorably inclined to the former president. Trump filed a motion requesting a “special master” review all of the material the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago before the investigation could proceed, and Cannon agreed—a victory for Team Trump.

The Justice Department appealed the decision, and the Eleventh Circuit Court ultimately ruled that neither Cannon nor Trump had had any legal right for their actions. The appeals court threw Cannon’s decision out entirely.

But Tuesday’s ruling could backfire on her. Before she issued her decision, Roger Parloff, the senior editor of Lawfare, warned that granting Trump’s request would be “highly controversial” and could spur more intense scrutiny of Cannon.

After Cannon ruled, Parloff noted that Smith’s team could file an interlocutory appeal based on the impression that Cannon has been too favorable to Trump. Cannon could potentially be removed from the case altogether.

House Republicans aren’t too thrilled with Speaker Mike Johnson anymore, spending the better part of the evening attacking each other before cannibalizing him for the party’s poor performance on Wednesday when it failed to pass two key votes under the rookie’s leadership.

“He didn’t count votes. I think he will next time,” South Carolina Representative Ralph Norman told CNN.

The first failure was a fragile effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Hours later, the caucus failed to pass a GOP-led alternative to the Senate bill that aimed to send $17.6 billion in U.S. aid to Israel. Four House Republicans joined Democrats in voting against Mayorkas’s impeachment, resulting in a stunning 216–214 upset.

“I think he relied, in his defense, on other people to sway some people. He needs to count votes before he comes to the floor. This message of not impeaching Mayorkas sent … a wrong message. I think you need to make sure. And as bad as Pelosi was, she knew her votes before it took place,” continued Norman, referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who advanced several major policy wins during her tenure at the top of the lower chamber with similarly slim leads.

Others continued to express disappointment in the GOP, which has failed to advance or pass any worthwhile policies related to its purported platform in years, according to some of its own members.

“I was embarrassed for our conference, for our party because we can do better than we did last night,” said Texas Representative Lance Gooden.

“When you are handed the keys to the, you know, to the kingdom, as it were, then when you have the majority, there is an expectation that you will be able to govern. And, we’ve just struggled with that over and over again,” said Arkansas Representative Steve Womack.

Johnson, meanwhile, laid the blame on unexpected boons to the Democratic vote, including a surprise showing by Texas Representative Al Green, who was ushered in barefoot and via wheelchair following an abdominal surgery.

“We have a razor-thin margin here, and every vote counts,” Johnson said on Wednesday. “Sometimes when you’re counting votes, and people show up when they’re not expected to be in the building, that changes the equation.”

But Johnson has more colossal tasks on the horizon. Soon, Johnson will have to make a decision about whether to bring up a Senate-negotiated aid package for Ukraine, which his party vehemently opposes. And another government shutdown looms large over Congress—the next deadline to fund the government is March 1. It remains to be seen whether the overwhelmingly divided caucus will be capable of negotiating a legitimate spending package or if it will struggle, once again, to push a stopgap spending bill over the finish line.

The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday about a proposed ballot initiative to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution—and it wasn’t looking good for the amendment’s opponents.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody had asked the high court to strike down the amendment, despite overwhelming support for it. Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group that helped organize signature collection for the initiative, gathered nearly one million verified signatures, far more than the minimum required. And many of those signatories were Republican voters.

Nathan Forrester, a Florida senior deputy solicitor general, argued Wednesday, as Moody had in her initial request, that the amendment’s language was too ambiguous. The amendment states that “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability.” State attorneys claimed that the use of the word “viability” could have multiple meanings.

But Courtney Brewer, a Florida State University professor representing the amendment’s backers, disagreed.

“Voters understand what is before them,” Brewer said. “If a voter doesn’t like this amendment, they are perfectly capable of voting against it.”

More importantly, she noted, voting to amend the state constitution was Florida residents’ right, both as part of a democracy and as laid out by the Supreme Court when it overturned Roe v. Wade.

“This amendment follows the directive given by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs, that the people should decide how their state may govern abortion,” Brewer said.

The Florida Supreme Court justices appeared inclined to agree with Brewer’s arguments. Justice John Couriel pointed out that the court’s job was not to determine whether the amendment was good or bad but to decide if it was clearly written or “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz called the measure “a wolf that comes as a wolf.”

“The people of Florida aren’t stupid—they can figure things out,” Muñiz said. “People can see for themselves whether it’s too broad or vague.”

The court has until April 1 to approve or reject the ballot measure. If the justices let that deadline pass, then the measure will proceed to the ballot by default.

The justices are also weighing Florida’s current abortion law, which bans the procedure after 15 weeks. If the court upholds the law, then an even more restrictive measure banning abortion at six weeks—before most people know they are pregnant—will go into effect. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the hugely unpopular bill last year. In January, Florida Republicans introduced a bill essentially banning abortion altogether.

If the abortion amendment makes it onto the ballot, then it has a strong chance of winning. Florida requires 60 percent of voters to support amending the state constitution. A 2023 study by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 64 percent of Floridians believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases—more than enough to defeat the state’s minimum threshold.

Since Roe was overturned, ballot initiatives have become a key tool in protecting abortion access. Multiple Republican-led states have put the question of abortion on the ballot—and every single time, voters choose to increase protections.

Despite heralding the “migrant crisis” as America’s number one priority, Republican lawmakers don’t seem too keen on actually doing their jobs to remedy it. In fact, according to one Republican senator, conservatives have been actively threatening those trying to solve it.

For weeks, Donald Trump–endorsed Senator James Lankford worked alongside his Democrat colleagues to develop a Senate resolution addressing problems stemming from the U.S.-Mexico border—ultimately creating a proposal that concedes so much to Republicans that it shocked progressives. And yet, House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that the bill would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber, refusing to back down from the House’s original proposal: the extreme, asylum-limiting bill H.R. 2.

On Wednesday, moments before the Senate officially blocked the bipartisan deal from moving forward, Lankford talked about the warnings he’s been receiving.

“Some of them have been very clear with me: They have political differences with the bill. They say it’s the wrong time to solve the problem, or let the presidential election solve this problem,” Lankford said on the Senate floor.

“I had a popular commentator that told me flat out, before they knew any of the contents of the bill, if you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election,” the Oklahoma Republican continued.

“By the way, they have been faithful to their promise and have done everything they can to destroy me in the past several weeks,” Lankford added.

Other conservative lawmakers, like Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw, appeared bewildered with his party’s grandstanding on Tuesday.

“I understand some Republicans are saying we don’t need any changes to the law. Then why did we write H.R. 2? Why did we do that?” lamented Crenshaw to C-SPAN after all the failed votes Tuesday. “Why didn’t Trump just shut down the border, if you think we just don’t need any changes to the law? He couldn’t! He had to make a deal with Mexico.”

Conservatives have been dropping hints for weeks that the GOP’s quiet refusal to actually do anything about the border is all to help reelect Trump, who hopes to make immigration a key issue in his presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, politicians around the country are trying to lobby for their own solutions to alleviate the burdens of mass immigration, which have collectively cost city governments billions in additional expenses. In an MSNBC op-ed, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston called on Congress to change the law and allow undocumented immigrants to work, decrying a “broken system” that effectively forces refugees looking for a better life into the throes of poverty.

“Every migrant I speak to tells me they don’t want any charity; they just want to work. When I speak to conservative business leaders, they say the same thing: Newcomers should work; I have open jobs; let me hire them,” Johnston wrote. “Migrants in our cities want to work and businesses want to hire them, yet the federal government continues to stand in the way of a common-sense solution. Congress must take steps that will resolve this humanitarian crisis for asylum-seekers and prevent a fiscal crisis for cities.”

“If we perpetuate the status quo, we will force local governments either to pay for perpetual public services for unemployed migrants, overwhelming city and state budgets, or cut back services for migrants and leave thousands of people homeless on our streets,” Johnston continued. “Both ‘solutions’ go against two core American values: We are a welcoming nation of immigrants, and anyone willing to work hard should be able to support their family.”

House Democrats couldn’t hide their glee on Wednesday as Republicans fumed over the party’s failure to pass major measures despite holding the chamber majority.

The House on Tuesday voted 250–180 against a Republican-led $17.6 billion aid package for Israel, and 216–214 against Republicans’ articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The losses are a stinging blow to Republicans, particularly House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was unable to unite his party.

As Republicans gripe about what went wrong, some have started to complain that Democrats didn’t warn them that Representative Al Green would be present. The Texas Democrat, who was set to have abdominal surgery, briefly left the hospital to cast his “no” vote on the House floor. Although his arrival in a wheelchair and wearing hospital scrubs caught some members off guard, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told CNN his presence “was not a surprise.”

That didn’t stop Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from claiming Tuesday night that Democrats “hid one of their members, waiting til the last minute, watching to see our votes, trying to throw us off on the numbers that we had versus the numbers they had.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries brushed off the accusation Wednesday. “It’s not our responsibility to let House Republicans know which members will or will not be present on the House Floor,” he told a press conference.

Jeffries also noted that when Nancy Pelosi was speaker, she successfully passed multiple major pieces of legislation—such as the Inflation Reduction Act—despite Democrats having a similarly narrow majority.

Representative Jimmy Gomez chimed in on X (formerly Twitter) with a brief counting lesson for Greene.

Pelosi herself pointed out that she never brought a bill to the floor unless she knew she had the votes to pass it.

“You have to have your votes,” she told CNN, unable to stop grinning. “Don’t worry about the other side. You have to have your votes. You know what is a majority. If you don’t have that, don’t bring it to the floor.”