07-15-24 Interview - Royal Oakes ABC News Legal Analyst

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Joining me. Now, Royal Oaks, ABC News legal analyst is on to
talk about they now dismissed Trump classifieddocuments case. Royal. I'm guessing that
Judge Aileen Cannon did not say thatTrump would come across like an old man
with a bad memory. But thisis another case that won't see the light

(00:20):
of day about classified documents. Tellme about how all this unwinds. Yeah,
this judge definitely did not get intothe whole cognitive ability issue. This
is Aileen Cannon, the federal judgeappointed by Donald Trump a few years ago
who has been handling the Florida criminalcase against Trump. She has dismissed the
matter today a ninety three page decision. She based her dismissal on the fact

(00:45):
that when Joe Biden's Attorney General MerrickArland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel,
that appointment broke federal law in twoways. First, a special council,
according to this judge, may onlybe appointed but the president, and then
the Congress has to confirm and approvethe appointment. Here again no presidential appointment,

(01:07):
it was the attorney general and noSenate of approval. The second argument
by this judge was that a specialcouncil's budget can't be a blank check.
Funds have to be approved by Congress, and here Congress hasn't approved a dime.
The Attorney General has green lit twentyfive million dollars in checks for Jack
Smith, and the no approval byCongress. So those are the grounds for

(01:27):
this blockbuster decision. Let me askyou this royal. The legal scholarship of
Alien Cannon has been really interesting towatch. What is the take on her
legal scholarship on this particular ruling,Because from the left, reflexively it is,

(01:47):
of course she let him off,he appointed her. But what are
legal scholars saying, Well, therewas one decision she made some months ago
that came under a lot of criticismfrom both sides of the aisle. It
was the question of what are wegoing to do about these hundreds of documents
that Donald Trump allegedly took from theWhite House tomorrow lago? And Trump said,
hey, we need an independent monitor, some retired judge is beyond approach

(02:13):
to sift through all this stuff andfigure out what's privileged and what's top secret
and what isn't. Well, thatargument wasn't very strong legally, and even
though Allen Cannon said, yeah,I'm going for it. It was immediately
struck down by the Eleventh Circuit Courtof Appeals. And the eleventh Circuit consists
of twelve judges, seven of whomwere appointed by Republican appointed presidents and five

(02:34):
of whom were appointed by Democrat presidents, so it was a little surprising that
they so quickly and vehemently rejected herposition. Since then, a lot of
people have said, well, thatshows she doesn't have much experience in criminal
law. She hasn't been on thefederal bench for law. She was appointed
by Trump, so we're just goingto assume she makes nothing but pro Trump
decisions. So a lot of people, including two of her colleagues, said

(02:57):
to her, hey, why don'tyou step aside. She refused, she's
getting the final word at least atthe trial court level here. And of
course, politically, a lot ofpeople point out that very many Democrat appointed
judges have been handling other Donald Trumpcases, and people on the left don't
seem to have a problem with that. So really you have to evaluate case
by case whether they're doing a goodjob or not, as opposed to just

(03:17):
looking to see who appointed them.Is there any kind of feedback right now
on this particular ruling in terms ofits legal scholarship. Yeah, So the
idea that you have to jump throughthose hoops I described a couple of minutes
ago. To appoint a special council, the Senate has to confirm it,

(03:38):
the President has to appoint. There'sno blank check. Those rules relied on
this by this judge really haven't beenenforced that way in a bunch of other
cases. For example, Robert Mullerwill remember he was a special counsel on
that Russia collusion deal during Trump's term. Before that, back in the day,
there was the Iran Contra controversy andscandal involving Ronald Reagan. Lawrence Walsh

(03:59):
was appointed. All these previous appointeeswere done in the way that Jack Smith
was appointed. And so many peoplewill say, well, you know,
you're just ignoring the Supreme Court precedent. This judge said, I think you're
misreading the key Supreme Court precedent.But eventually the US Supreme Court will get
the final word. So that iswhat we're waiting for now. We're waiting
for an appeal by the prosecutor.Have we gotten that indication yet? Yeah,

(04:24):
absolutely, they're going to go tothe Eleventh Circuit. They're also going
to say, hey, we wantyou to dump Judge Aileen Cannon because you
think she's biased and incompetent. Whoeverloses that the Eleventh Circuit will then go
to the US Supreme Court. Thesignificance for Trump at this point, of
course, is that mission accomplished.This is another delay. The ultimate decision
on the floridacation now will not berendered until way beyond November's election. And

(04:47):
that's what we wanted to know.Royal Oaks, I appreciate your insight today
ABC News Legal analyst. Thanks forjoining us today to go over this. You bet