As we know, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has made some weird moves in Donald Trump’s classified documents case. So it’s notable that she appears to have done something normal in keeping classified discovery from Trump co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.
Following a “careful review,” as she put it in a Tuesday order, the Trump appointee wrote that special counsel Jack Smith “has carried his burden to withhold from Defendants Nauta and De Oliveira personally all classified discovery produced to date.”
One of the things that led the judge to that commonsense conclusion is that she recognized that reviewing these classified details wouldn’t help their defense. She recalled that, unlike the charges against Trump, the ones against Nauta and De Oliveira don’t require proof that they willfully retained documents relating to the national defense. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty.
To be sure, she still has plenty of time and opportunity to cause mischief. Indeed, on the ever-important timing point, a scheduling conference Friday may signal her latest thoughts about when the case will actually see trial. She previously set a May 20 date, but there’s reason to think that could get pushed back — the bigger question may be how far, and how that scheduling interacts with the federal election interference case. And that prosecution is tied up while we await word from the Supreme Court on what it’s doing with Trump’s quest to keep that one paused.
But whatever happens in the classified documents case, the judge has shown she knows how to make obviously correct moves when she wants to.
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