Loose Cannon

Turning on the news yesterday morning, I thought there was little that could come along that would push the news channels off from continuing to report 24/7 that someone took a shot at Trump two days earlier.  But then, I hadn’t counted on Judge Aileen Cannon.
 
(I was going to say that I hadn’t counted on “the mobster’s wife,” but decided that was a little unfair.  Not unfair, mind you, just a little unfair.  After all, her husband Josh Lorence recently worked for John Rosatti, a former member of the Colombo crime family, who used to pal around in New York with Trump and now lives near Mar-a-Lago. It is certainly possible that everything Mr. Lorence did in his work with Rosatti was perfectly legal and not mob-related at all, but even he thinks his work, at the very least, appears sketchy, since he wiped any mention of it from his LinkedIn page.  But I digress…)
 
To be clear, I wasn’t surprised by Cannon’s decision, tossing the entire documents case – long considered the most slam-dunk prosecution of all the indictments.  I just wasn’t expected it this week.  I should add something that I haven’t heard any mention of on the news coverage – while I don’t say that the timing of her decision was intentional, I will put it this way:  considering how beneficial her rulings and delays have almost all been for Trump, this dismissal certainly was remarkably helpful to Trump, coming on the first day of the Republican National Convention, when it can now be used as a major talking point about Trump’s supposed innocence and mythical witch hunts.
 
My first reaction, like I’m sure many people’s, was teeth-gnashing outrage.  But as a few minutes past, I came to a different conclusion – it’s still an outrage, but it also may be a case of “Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.”
 
For starters, although the time it takes for the appeals process means Aileen Cannon’s ruling ensures the case won’t be heard before the election, it already was delayed long enough – and she’ll delay it further -- that it wasn’t going to be heard before the election any way.  So, this doesn’t change that at all.
 
Additionally, when Jack Smith makes his appeal to the 11th Circuit Appeals Board, it seems near-certain they will overturn the ruling that has seemingly no basis in merit and which other courts have already ruled on behalf of the Special Counsel appointment being legal,
 
Further, even if Trump appeals to the Supreme Court, and they’re so deep in the bag for him that they throw out the Special Counsel’s case, that doesn’t mean the case it over.  Attorney General Merrick Garland can just reassign it to a local U.S. Attorney and re-file it.
 
That said, I don’t think even this Supreme Court would rule the Special Counsel office to be illegal.  There are too many cases already decided that would be thrown out if the High Court invalidated the office.  Additionally, the Hunter Biden guilty verdict would be thrown out, as would the Special Counsel’s second Hunter Biden case that is still working its way through the legal process.  Moreover, there have already been several court decisions supporting the legitimacy of the Special Counsel’s office.  So, given that throwing out the case would also throw out so many other cases, including those with Hunter Biden, and given that there is so much precedent supporting it (not that this court cares about precedent), and given that that throwing out the Special Counsel wouldn’t even make the case go away, I suspect that even this Supreme Court would find almost no reason to do something with so little basis in law that would also throw out a favorite MAGOP guilty verdict and have no effective meaning.
 
Which brings us to the “Be careful what you wish for” part.
 
It not only seems likely that Jack Smith will make a quick appeal – in fact, I suspect the appeal has long been expected and written, and they’re just tweaking it to precisely fit the ruling, but given their past actions quickly overturning Judge Cannon on appeal, the 11th Circuit will likely overturn this decision quickly, as well.  And more importantly – it seems that her decision here is not only so over-the-top egregious and unsupportable, that it is finally the ruling that Smith will use to get her removed from the case, showing he can’t get a fair trial from her, since (on top of all her other decisions and delays) she just threw out his entire case, which (I presume) the 11th Circuit will overturn.  In fact, her decision might be so egregious, along with past actions that the 11th Circuit might even act on its own and reassign the case without Jack Smith having to file for that to occur.
 
Another possibility is that Smith could simply re-file the case in another jurisdiction, likely Washington, D.C., which has already ruled that his appointment is legitimate.  That would mean that a few items in the indictment would have to be thrown out, since they didn’t occur in D.C., but most of the case would hold.
 
The only downside in this is that if Trump does win the election, he’ll make sure that the case goes away.  But that has nothing to do with Cannon’s ruling.  That would happen regardless of it.
 
As for the ruling, as ghastly as it was, in the end (and soon), it very well might be far worse for Trump.