Justice Dept. Smith moves to prod Trump Florida files case into gear….

Actually?

They dissed the judge in legalise over her apparent tardiness and seemingly being in over her head in the Trump classified files case ….

And Judge Aileen Cannon, alread spanlked legally by a Appeals’s Court?

Seems to be trying to stall things , in a effort , and hope that a elected Donald Trump could make this whole thing go away….The same thing Trump is doing, eh?

 

In an open display of frustration, federal prosecutors on Tuesday night told the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case that a “fundamentally flawed” order she had issued was causing delays and asked her to quickly resolve a critical dispute about one of Mr. Trump’s defenses — leaving them time to appeal if needed.

The unusual and risky move by the prosecutors, contained in a 24-page filing, signaled their mounting impatience with the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, who has allowed the case to become bogged down in a logjam of unresolved issues and curious procedural requests. It was the most directly prosecutors have confronted Judge Cannon’s legal reasoning and unhurried pace, which have called into question whether a trial will take place before the election in November even though both sides say they could be ready for one by summer.

In their filing, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, all but begged Judge Cannon to move the case along and make a binding decision about one of Mr. Trump’s most brazen claims: that he cannot be prosecuted for having taken home a trove of national security documents after leaving office because he transformed them into his own personal property under a law known as the Presidential Records Act.

The prosecutors derided that assertion as one “not based on any facts,” adding that it was a “justification that was concocted more than a year after” Mr. Trump left the White House….

…

Fla., Judge Cannon herself expressed skepticism about Mr. Trump’s assertion, saying it was most likely not enough to dismiss the case before it went to trial.

But then within days, she made a surprising move, ordering the former president’s lawyers and Mr. Smith’s prosecutors to send her proposed jury instructions suggesting she was open to embracing the very same defense….

…

Judge Cannon’s order for jury instructions was odd on its face because such issues are usually hashed out on the eve of trial, and she has not set a trial date yet.

It was even stranger because by appearing to adopt Mr. Trump’s position on the Presidential Records Act, the judge seemed to be nudging any eventual jurors toward acquitting Mr. Trump or even leaving open the possibility that she herself could acquit the former president near the end of the proceeding by declaring that the government had failed to prove its case….

…

The legal gamesmanship she has encouraged over how to handle Mr. Trump’s Presidential Records Act defense is all the more bizarre because the argument itself is legally dubious….

…

Should they run out of patience altogether, prosecutors could at some point file a motion asking Judge Cannon to remove herself from the case. She would probably reject that effort, requiring the government to go over her head and make the same request to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which sits above her.

Typically, recusal motions require prosecutors to point to flawed decisions. And so far, Judge Cannon has largely avoided making decisions, complicating any effort to get rid of her.

More…

Note….

Andrew Weissmann

I agree with @JoyceWhiteVance that if this gets to the 11th Circuit, it will both reverse Cannon again — AND I think it will remove her from the case- 3 reversals is more than enough for this inexperienced judge, who gets the law wrong and always in Trump’s favor.