Prosecutor Jack Smith is showing "increasing frustration" with Donald Trump's classified documents case but will struggle to have Judge Aileen Cannon removed from the case, a former federal prosecutor has said.
"Judge Cannon has been consistently wrong on law, and Smith's increasing frustration is evident in his filings," attorney Neama Rahmani told Newsweek.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, criticized Smith in a recent court ruling.
"Cannon seems in over her head and not ready for a case of this magnitude. It's still unlikely that she will be removed from the case, however," Rahmani said.
Newsweek reached out to Cannon and Smith's offices via email on Tuesday.
Rahmani, the president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers law firm, said that a higher court is unlikely to remove Cannon from the case, even if her rulings are overturned several times on appeal.
"Being reversed on appeal isn't enough, even if she is reversed multiple times. Smith would have to prove Cannon is partial and reassignment is necessary. That's not an easy legal standard to meet," Rahmani said.
On Monday, Smith filed a court document expressing his frustration at the slow pace of the classified documents case.
In his filing, Smith said Trump's legal team is trying to use the Stormy Daniels trial in New York to delay the classified documents case as much as possible.
On April 11, Cannon sharply criticized Smith's "sweeping request" to censor FBI interviews in Trump's classified documents case.
"The Court finds the Special Counsel's sweeping request and generalized rationales inadequate to overcome the public's common-law interest in access to these materials," Cannon wrote.
She is overseeing the case, in which the former president is accused of illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and obstructing attempts by federal officials to retrieve them. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He has denied any wrongdoing in the case and has said the documents he retained were personal.
In an order on April 10, Cannon refused to censor FBI interviews with Walt Nauta, Trump's former personal assistant, who is alleged to have hidden classified documents at Trump's request.
Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker, are accused of moving boxes of sensitive materials around Trump's Florida home to prevent federal agents from finding them and conspiring to delete security footage that had been sought under a subpoena.
Both men have pleaded not guilty to all federal charges against them, including conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Smith has repeatedly told Cannon that he does not want the names of FBI witnesses to be disclosed to the public because Trump supporters have intimidated potential witnesses in other cases involving the former president. Trump's lawyers, however, have long opposed the censorship of witness identities in the case.
On April 9, Cannon wrote a strident criticism of Smith while granting his request to redact the names of some witnesses in the case. She mentioned Smith's supposed failures eight times while conceding that it was best to censor the names of government witnesses.
Much of her criticism was of Smith's alleged failure to state adequate reasons that the names of government witnesses should be protected from public view.
In the April 9 ruling, Cannon said that Smith had failed to provide an adequate argument against a press coalition that was fighting to prevent the censorship of documents in the case.
"The Special Counsel had two opportunities to raise these arguments and failed to do so in both instances. The Special Counsel's initial Seal Request failed to offer a governing legal framework or any factual support for the relief sought," she wrote.
Cannon also said Smith failed to comply with the rules on sealing sensitive court filings.
"And this is to say nothing of the Special Counsel's failure to comply with this District's Local Rules on sealing, which the Court has emphasized repeatedly throughout this proceeding," she said.
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Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more
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