Judge Aileen Cannon pushes back on idea that more hearings will delay Trump classified documents case
On Thursday, the Florida-based judge said in a new order that she wants more evidence about the language in the FBI warrant used to seize classified records from Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and about grand jury testimony from Trump’s former attorney.
Those issues were argued in hearings on Tuesday, but Cannon did not rule on the matters.
Cannon has been widely criticized for dragging out the case over multiple hearings, and a prosecutor at the hearing earlier this week told her he believed the Trump team was trying to hijack the proceedings as a way to spread conspiracies about the work of federal investigators on this case.
In her 11-page order Thursday, Cannon seemed to push back on her critics.
“There is a difference between a resource-wasting and delay-producing ‘mini-trial,’ on the one hand, and an evidentiary hearing geared to adjudicating the contested factual and legal issues on a given pre-trial motion to suppress,” Cannon wrote.
Cannon said she would revisit the language used in the search warrant to seize property from Mar-a-Lago two years ago and the Justice Department’s use of then-Trump attorney Evan Corcoran’s to bolster the obstruction part of the case.
The special counsel’s office has strongly opposed the need for additional hearings and Trump’s attempts to cut out parts of the case.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
In the context of the judge's criticisms and subsequent actions, her 11-page order emphasized the importance of addressing the contested facts in the politics surrounding the search warrant and grand jury testimony. Despite the prosecutor's concerns about delays, Cannon argued that her hearings aimed to adjudicate the issues, distinguishing them from resource-wasting mini-trials.
