‘She’s On An Island’: NBC Legal Correspondent Rips Judge Cannon’s Unprecedented Ruling Shutting Down Jack Smith
NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian took aim at Judge Aileen Cannon’s Monday decision to effectively dismiss Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Donald Trump on the grounds that a special counsel appointment violates the Constitution.
Former federal prosecutor Chuck Rosenberg spoke to MSNBC anchor José Díaz-Balart ahead of Dilanian and broke down what was in Cannon’s 93-page decision, concluding that “many courts have looked at this question over the years. Special counsels have been appointed and their appointments have been challenged, and no court has ever done what Judge Cannon, did today.”
Díaz-Balart then asked, “And Ken Dilanian and just, you know, thinking back on what Chuck just said, I mean, so many courts have for so many years looked into this issue and have not decided what Judge Aileen Cannon decided today. What does that tell you?”
“Well, it tells you, as Chuck said, she’s on an island, José. And just recently, in the Hunter Biden case, Hunter Biden’s attorneys tried some of these same arguments to challenge the appointment of special counsel David Weiss. And they were unsuccessful,” Dilanian replied, adding:
People tried this, against special counsel Robert Mueller and were unsuccessful. And it’s really important to point out and so viewers understand, there is nothing in this opinion that speaks to the merits of this case, to the classified documents, to the allegations of obstruction of justice. This is an entirely procedural issue. It’s a constitutional question. It’s whether, whether the law establishing the special counsel violates the appointments Clause. And she also actually made a ruling on a separate argument about the appropriations clause.
And she and she’s decided that the way Congress is funding, the way the special counsel is funded is not appropriate, either. So, again, nothing to do with the merits of the case. And I’ve been I was speaking to legal experts before anticipating the possibility of this happening. And one expert said to me, you know, one thing the Justice Department could do here, very simply, is to have the U.S. attorney in Florida or in the District of Columbia, for that matter, because some of the conflict happened in DC simply refile this indictment. And it could draw a different judge and it could proceed. The issue with that, though, is that it’s not a special counsel.
Merrick Garland went down this road. He decided that because Donald Trump is running for president against President Biden. And Merrick Garland is President Biden’s attorney general, he decided that there had to be a special counsel in this case. But, you know, now the case has been investigated, the allegations have been made, the evidence is out there. So you could argue that it wouldn’t be improper, wouldn’t be inappropriate for the Justice Department to simply pursue this case through a different venue without the special counsel. In the interest of justice, we’ll have to see what the Justice Department decides to do here. But that’s a question that I’m, as soon as I get off camera, I’m going to be calling and asking folks if that’s a possibility.
Watch the full clip above.
