Jack Smith near breaking point. He’s powerless to do anything until judge Cannon rules, and she may not rule until after trial begins. And that will be too late.
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith could soon seek to have the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case recused, prosecutors and defense attorneys warn, describing Smith as being pressed to the “breaking point” over arguments his office said could taint a trial irrevocably.
Smith faulted Judge Aileen Cannon in a scathing rebuke for seeming to take at face value Trump’s “fundamentally flawed” claim around a president’s official and personal records when she asked both sides to put forth competing versions of instructions for jurors in the case and said her request would “distort” the trial. Smith indicated in that filing that if Cannon ruled against federal prosecutors, this could be a trigger for an appeal to the 11th Circuit that could remove her from the case.
“He is close to pushing the nuclear button,” said Palm Beach County State Attorney David Aronberg. “It is a high burden to reach, and it is rarely done, but her proposed jury instructions may have pushed him to the breaking point.”
That proposal for jury instructions, a final version of which would be delivered to jurors at the end of a trial, seemed to consider Trump’s interpretation of how classified documents could be preserved after leaving office, which is at the center of the charge against him.
NBC News — The nuclear option. Jack Smith could seek removal of judge Cannon in documents case. But not until Cannon rules on jury instructions.
Civil rights groups are warning that a bill that creates new rules for removing voters from the rolls could cause “chaos” in the key swing state of Georgia’s election this year if it’s signed by Gov. Brian Kemp.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office said the changes would provide clarity to county election officials who have been inundated with tens of thousands of voter registration challenges from Republican activists.
“It puts parameters around the challenge process,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for Raffensperger, a Republican, said. “Whereas before it was wide open, and there was no language. You could challenge a voter at any time for any reason.”
The American Civil Liberties of Georgia says the proposed law is anything but clear.
“It’s possible that the intent of this bill was to provide clarity,” Cory Isaacson, the legal director of the ACLU of Georgia, said. “Unfortunately, that’s not what the end result of this bill does. We read it as generating a lot of confusion, a lot of inconsistency, and likely injecting chaos into this process right before the election cycle is about to begin.”