Judge Grills Trump's Lawyers Over Special Counsel Jack Smith's Role in Classified Documents Case

Emil Bove contended in court that Jack Smith's appointment as special counsel was "unconstitutional," on behalf of the former president Donald Trump in his lawsuit involving stolen classified documents. Bove continued by comparing Merrick Garland's appointment of Smith to the authority of a "shadow government." Judge Aileen Cannon didn't accept the Trump team's narrative; she has been accused of continuously postponing the trial and has repeatedly refused to transfer the matter to a different judge. “That sounds very ominous, a shadow government. But what does that mean?” Cannon grilled Bove, according to CNN. 

Bove responded that Smith was still not reporting to anyone in response to Cannon's observation that Smith still needed to follow a regulatory framework. Cannon's slow handling of the Trump case has drawn a lot of attention from detractors who claim that she is helping him in his attempt to push back any trial until after the November election. Smith was appointed outside of the Senate's review, making him "one of the most powerful officials in the entire United States Government," according to a filing made by lawyers for a former attorney general and the right-wing nonprofit Citizens United in support of Trump's move to dismiss the case. 

“By pursuing a former President of the United States who is currently the leading candidate to become the next President of the United States,” the group wrote, “Smith’s prosecution here shows that he wields the power to profoundly alter the trajectory of a presidential election and with it the destiny of the Nation.” Smith's nomination, according to Gene Schaerr, the attorney for Citizens United and former Attorney General Edwin Meese, gave him greater authority than a US attorney "without political accountability." “Mr. Smith’s appointment severely undermines” the constitutional order," he said.

Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb criticized Judge Cannon's decisions calling her a “partisan, petty prima donna.” Cobb made the statement while appearing on CNN’s OutFront with anchor Erin Burnett and he also added that “the law requires that” Cannon “validate” Smith’s “appointment and not disqualify him.”  “The worst thing … could happen to her, is that she actually does rule for Trump on this, because that would go to the 11th Circuit, and then I think this petty, partisan prima donna would be put in her place, and they would remove her,” he said as per Mediaite. “They wanna get Jack Smith fired, get rid of him as special counsel, say it’s invalid in the Mar-a-Lago case. So, what’s really at stake here?”

“Nothing, really, since the law requires that she validate Jack Smith’s appointment and not disqualify him,” Cobb replied. “The jurisprudence on this goes back to 1988 when the Independent Counsel statute, which preceded special counsel appointments when the Independent Counsel statute was fully vetted in the Supreme Court and upheld.” Calling Cannon's arguments as 'flimsy' he added, “The fact she doesn’t deny most of these motions without a hearing is silly,” he added. “The fact that Trump can get a hearing on the flimsiest arguments is shocking.” He said that Cannon's prospects would not be good if she decided to rule in favor of Trump by ruling that Smith's appointment was unlawful.