Judge Aileen Cannon keeps making very obvious legal errors as she tries to protect Donald Trump from Jack Smith, and now legal experts say that her latest move could be enough to warrant her removal. Cannon has agreed to allow Trump’s allies to submit amicus briefs in the case, something that experts say any other judge would have immediately tossed out. If Cannon continues down this path, Smith should have no trouble getting her removed from the case, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Judge Aileen Cannon has done everything in her power, and I’ve of course talked about this a million times, but she has done everything in her power to make sure that Donald Trump has a stacked deck as he faces off in court against the federal prosecutors led by Jack Smith. But legal experts are now saying that Judge Cannon may have overplayed her hand and that she is now in effect on thin ice. Now they admit that as it stands right this moment, there’s probably not enough evidence to get the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is where any appeal from this court would go. They probably don’t have enough evidence just yet. They’re close, but they don’t have it yet to get Judge Cannon kicked off the case. But there is something that she did recently they say that could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

So what did Judge Cannon do that was so bad? Well, she allowed amicus briefs to be submitted, and she accepted them and is going to consider them, one, from former Trump aide Stephen Miller and the other from former, I believe Reagan attorney General Edwin Meese, and both of these idiotic amicus briefs filed in a criminal case, which is exceedingly rare. But both of these amicus briefs make the idiotic and flat out wrong argument that Jack Smith has no authority to be special prosecutor because he wasn’t currently a US attorney when he was appointed as a special prosecutor. Let me read you this.

Cannon agreed to consider amicus briefs filed by former Trump staffer, Stephen Miller’s America First Foundation, and former Attorney General Edwin Meese advocating for the case to be dismissed because they argue, special counsel Jack Smith does not have the authority to prosecute because he was not serving as a US attorney prior to his appointment and was not confirmed by the US Senate. Here’s what Meese wrote in his brief. He said, Smith is the classic emperor with no clothes. He has no more authority to represent the United States in this court than Tom Brady, Lionel Messi, or Kanye West. The court should grant the motion to dismiss on the appointments clause issue and do so prior to ruling on the motions to dismiss pending in this case. Now, here’s the fun part. You actually do not have to be a US attorney to be appointed a special prosecutor. You also do not have to be approved by the Senate. Like those aren’t things.

And the legal experts, as I mentioned, they already pointed out that literally any other judge in this country would’ve taken these amicus briefs, which again, are typically not ever filed in criminal cases. Yes, sometimes they are, but it is exceedingly rare for an amicus brief to be filed in a criminal case, let alone one that makes an argument that’s actually not based on a real law. Any other judge these legal experts say would’ve taken these briefs and said, wow, this is, this is really, oh, no. Oh, look what happened to your brief. Oh, I’m sorry. Get the outta my court. That’s what any other judge would’ve done. Possibly a little more respectfully, but not Judge Cannon. No. Judge Cannon says, bring ’em in. We’ll have a hearing. I’ll consider your argument that is not actually based on law of the United States. Why not? Right? I’m a dumb. I’ll just do whatever conservatives want me to do. At this point, even her decision to consider these briefs, that alone motion to remove her from the trial right there, right then and there.

Now, as I’ve said, Smith’s kind of put up with a lot of crap from her, and the reason I think that he has not yet filed the motion to remove her is because he’s just stacking it all up. When he finally files it and I do think eventually he will file it, I think he wants to be able to go to that 11th Circuit with an airtight case and a mountain of evidence and say, all right, here, take this, get her outta here. And a win. The 11th Circuit has already been very generous to Jack Smith, unlike Judge Cannon. So it is what it is. We’re probably gonna have to go through at least a couple more weeks, maybe even a couple more months of Judge Cannon making these stupid decisions, but maybe not. We do have some hearings coming up on Thursday that could, depending on what she does, cause Jack Smith to go ahead and file the motion to kick her off this case for good.

Farron Cousins is the executive editor of The Trial Lawyer magazine and a contributing writer at DeSmogBlog.com. He is the co-host / guest host for Ring of Fire Radio. His writings have appeared on Alternet, Truthout, and The Huffington Post. Farron received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of West Florida in 2005 and became a member of American MENSA in 2009. Follow him on Twitter @farronbalanced