The MAGA-friendly federal judge who keeps siding with Donald Trump in his Mar-a-Lago classified records case has forced prosecutors to make a stark choice: allow jurors to see a huge trove of national secrets or let him go.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’sultimatum Monday night came as a surprise twist in what could have been a simple order; one merely asking federal prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers for proposed jury instructions at the upcoming trial.

But as she has done repeatedly, Cannon used this otherwise innocuous legal step as yet another way to swing the case wildly in favor of the man who appointed her while he was president.

Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith must now choose whether to allow jurors at the upcoming criminal trial to peruse the many classified records found at the former president’s South Florida mansion or give jurors instructions that would effectively order them to acquit him.

  • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Im just trying to understand your experience there. So being lazy, documents could be marked S/TS. And then following on to allowing the jurybto see whether they were classified.

    This sounds to me you’re suggesting the jury should verify these documents, and assuming some are marked S/TS, come to a decision as to whether it should actually be that classification and not some lower classification allowing more general disclosure?