Shameless Judge Cannon May Have Killed Trump’s Classified Docs Case

Judge Aileen Cannon has handed another reprieve to Donald Trump in his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

The case was expected to be one of Trump’s first criminal trials to go to court, but any trial date now appears to be up in the air after Cannon on Monday ordered a stay on Trump’s legal requirement to give the government advance notice of which classified materials will be discussed. But the stay—which is described as temporary—also has no set expiration date.

Legal analysts have worried that a strategy of continual delays could be the Trump-appointed judge’s way of surreptitiously dismissing the trial altogether.

“This case was set for trial on May 20, which obviously won’t happen,” wrote MSNBC legal analyst and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance. “It should have been ready to try by the end of last year. Extending the 5(a) deadlines indefinitely is the same thing as giving Trump an indefinite trial delay.”

In March, Trump tried twice to get the case dismissed, arguing in separate motions that it wasn’t clear when he took the sensitive material whether doing so was illegal and that the classified documents could be considered “personal materials” rather than presidential ones under the Presidential Records Act. The latter defense was roundly rejected by special counsel Jack Smith’s office, which pointed to a transcript of Trump’s own words in which the former president acknowledged the records definitely were not personal.

Meanwhile, Trump has practically confessed that he took the sensitive records. In an interview on Newsmax, Trump claimed point blank that he actually did take the classified documents, describing the process of shamelessly packing them away while leaving office.

“I took ’em very legally,” Trump said. “And I wasn’t hiding them.”

Ultimately, Cannon’s extended time allowance for the GOP presidential nominee just presents another roadblock to actually trying the former president for any of his alleged misconduct. The Supreme Court is still deliberating Trump’s presidential immunity claim, which leaped out of the former president’s election interference trial and challenges whether Trump could be charged at all for alleged crimes he committed while in office. The high court is expected to issue its opinion sometime between late June and early July.

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who is at the center of the allegations against Donald Trump in his hush-money trial, is the next witness on the stand Tuesday

Trump started his day early Tuesday morning with an angry post on Truth Social fuming that he only just learned which witness would be called next, only to quickly delete the post, possibly afraid of violating his gag order and facing prison time.

Trump was warned Monday by Judge Juan Merchan that any further violations of his gag order would result in prison time. The former president has already been found guilty of violating the order 10 times, resulting in a total of $10,000 in fines: $1,000 for every instance.

The case centers around hush-money payments made to Daniels from Trump to cover up an affair prior to the 2016 election through his former fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen. Daniels’s testimony will mark a change from earlier witnesses, who have mostly spoken about payments and communications taking place in 2016 and 2017. Daniels has previously spoken about receiving threats over the payments, remarking that she accepted them because she feared for her life. Her testimony could elaborate on this as well as other salacious details, which could be very damaging to Trump.

Trump is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in his payoff of Daniels. He has pleaded not guilty.

A former accountant in the Trump Organization dropped a bombshell during her testimony at Donald Trump’s hush-money trial Monday. According to witness Deborah Tarasoff, Trump “personally signed” the checks to his former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen.

The prosecution asked Tarasoff about numerous business documents showing payments to Cohen, who coordinated the payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels that are the core of the hush-money case.

Pictures of voided checks were shown to the court, including one $70,000 check signed by the ex-Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and Donald’s son Eric Trump.

According to The Guardian, Tasaroff told the court that prior to 2017, these kinds of payments came from the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust, but after that, they came personally from the then–newly elected president.

In one instance, Tasaroff confirmed that Cohen was paid $35,000 from Trump’s personal account for one month’s invoice, like the earlier trust-based payments. Afterward, she was asked about a $35,000 check to Cohen from June 2017 and confirmed that the signature came from the former president. She did the same with a check from the following month.

Tasaroff also testified that after 2015, Trump or one of his adult sons had to sign off on every invoice over $10,000. When Tasaroff created the checks, Trump would either personally sign the check or write “void.”

“If he didn’t want to sign it, he didn’t sign it,” she said, according to CNN.

Earlier on Monday, the court heard testimony from Jeffrey McConney, the former corporate controller at the Trump Organization, confirming handwritten notes about payments to Cohen coming from discussions with Weisselberg. Those payments seemed to provide damning proof of tax fraud in the Trump Organization’s reimbursement of Trump’s ex-lawyer and fixer.

All Monday’s testimony goes to show, prosecutors hope, that Trump had direct involvement in repayments to Cohen, even after being elected president, and thus made payments to Daniels to cover up his affair with her prior to the 2017 election. Trump faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. He has pleaded not guilty, and the court has yet to hear testimony from Daniels or Cohen.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just got a random—and possibly unwelcome—endorsement in the presidential election from Kevin Spacey.

Kennedy’s presidential campaign has been wracked with controversy as of late. In desperate need of a boost six months out from the 2024 election, he is no doubt looking for high-profile backers to rebut criticism from all corners, including his own family. Spacey, however, was probably not high on his list.

That didn’t stop Spacey from tweeting his support for Kennedy on Monday.

“There’s a lot I can learn from this man. When the world turned its back on me, Bobby leaned in. He’s a formidable fighter for justice and a loyal friend that’s not afraid to stand up for what he believes,” the disgraced actor wrote in response to a 30-minute mini-documentary narrated by Woody Harrelson, which Kennedy posted on Saturday.

The endorsement comes as Spacey faces new sexual misconduct allegations, soon to be made public in a Channel 4 documentary. He has previously been accused of sexual assault and battery in 2017, which he has denied. Most recently, Spacey resurfaced to commiserate with Tucker Carlson on the former Fox News host’s interview show on X (formerly Twitter), where he brought back his Frank Underwood character from House of Cards.

Kennedy, despite running well behind Joe Biden, has called on the president to drop out of the presidential race. Spacey’s endorsement isn’t likely to move the needle there.

A group of Republican senators have threatened the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, and his family against issuing arrest warrants for any Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a letter to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan on April 24, 12 Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, and Tim Scott, warned that if an arrest warrant was issued for any Israeli leaders, “We will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States,” according to a report from Zeteo.

“Target Israel and we will target you,” the letter from April 24 added, noting that the senators would sanction the court’s employees and associates, “and bar you and your families from the United States.”

“You have been warned,” the letter concluded.

Other signatories include Katie Britt, Rick Scott, and Pete Ricketts.

In response, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said that it is “absolutely wrong to interfere in a judicial matter by threatening judicial officers, their family members and their employees with retribution. This thuggery is something befitting the mafia, not U.S. senators.”

On Friday, the office of the chief prosecutor posted a statement on X (formerly Twitter) denouncing threats against it as well as attempts to intimidate and impede its officials.

The GOP senators cited the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, a bill that has been referred to by some as the “Hague Invasion Act” because it could be used to justify a military operation against the ICC in The Hague if it prosecutes American officials or soldiers. In recent years, and especially after the court in 2023 issued an arrest warrant against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials for war crimes issued in the invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration pledged to help the ICC in its efforts.  

Israel and the United States are not members of the ICC, but the Palestinian territories were admitted with the status of a member state in 2015. A week before Khan, a British attorney, was appointed to the court in 2021, the court ruled unanimously that it had jurisdiction over “Gaza and the West Bank.”

It’s telling that allegations of war crimes by Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu don’t seem to faze leading Republicans in the Senate, even as at least 34,735 people have been killed, including over 14,500 children. Instead, they are attacking anyone who seeks to hold the Israeli government accountable, whether college students or the International Criminal Court, rather than doing so themselves.