Donald Trump is looking at 37 counts,
federal counts on this indictment brought by special prosecutor Jack Smith for
all those documents that he lied about keeping forever.
31 of those charges claim that Trump willfully kept those classified documents
in his possession after leaving the White House, the vast majority of those.
But all this damning evidence also brings some familiar names and
faces as far as the people that are gonna be judging this case.
Let's take a look at here.
>> Judge Aileen Cannon, and if that name sounds familiar to you,
it is because this is not the first time she has been involved in this case.
It was Judge Cannon who, earlier in the classified documents investigation,
appointed a special master to review the thousands of documents seized from
Mar-a-Lago, stalling the government's investigation.
A higher court later overruled her, and it will be Judge Cannon who oversees
Trump's arraignment next Tuesday afternoon and
determines whether to set a trial date before the 2024 election.
>> Looks like more control for
Aileen Cannon who was a part of the first part of this process of Donald Trump and
his stolen documents and then lying about it, case.
She's somehow been appointed yet again.
New York Times did point this out specifically that, again,
Trump-appointed judge.
So, I mean, we know the way Donald Trump thinks.
He's criticized judges appointed by other presidents for being beholden to them.
I think that gives us a glimpse of what he thinks judges should do for
the people that appoint them, then Ms. Cannon.
So how did this whole thing even go down?
Cuz it's odd that this name just keeps coming up that didn't get much play
before.
New cases are also randomly assigned among these judges in the district.
Also, the chances that Judge Cannon would randomly receive this assignment were
very low.
Who's part of this whole thing?
I'm not really sure, but there are also 15 active federal district court judges in
South Florida along with 11 on senior status.
So again, Adrienne, I hate to keep putting you on the spot like this, but
this is what I like to do cuz I don't understand these things all the time.
How does this really work, where then Aileen Cannon could be on this again after
then other circuit judges or higher ups already pushed back on the way that she
approached the first realms of this investigation?
>> All right, so generally when cases get assigned, there is some randomness there's
depending on what the chief judge of the court chooses to do and some of them may,
to some extent, auto-populate in the system.
Got that, the thought that there is some randomness there.
But the thing is that there is complete and total problematicness going on here
cuz we know Aileen Cannon just essentially ignored all the canons of law and
precedent when she had ruled in Trump's case before,
when she appointed the special master,
and when she wrote opinions that the Eleventh Circuit had to go and reverse.
And the thing is that right now she seems to be the one who is going to oversee
this case.
But what we really need is the Eleventh Circuit to step in and
step up because there is precedent out there that says that they can take
the case away from her and move it to someone else.
But they are a very conservative court.
They did hand her ass before twice before, so they may be willing to do it again, but
again, they are very conservative.
But the reality is that if Trump isn't really the one that the right wants,
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of things get done behind closed doors that
need to be done.
And I'll allow it because, hey, the fact is, if we're gonna have this kind of
seminal, watershed kind of moment with the prosecution of a former president,
it needs to be done by the book, and it needs to be done right, because
the justice system is already thought to be one that is of inequity and unfairness.
And so for any kind of faith in the judiciary, which is right now hanging by
a thread largely because of SCOTUS, we really need that for the United States,
for it to be whole, it to be clean, and for it to be indisputable.
>> Maz, do Demos come off looking like we're conspiracy theorists with this?
>> Listen, I like Adrienne's take on that, that it's like this is the back room,
the little hit that they put on Trump, they're like, we're gonna get
an insider to take him down, and then, hey, now we got DeSantis rising.
I like that, that's an interesting take.
First of all, I can't hear her name without thinking, come on,
Aileen, I swear, by all means I will do anything.
So it's gonna be distracting regardless.
The only other way it could have been worse if her name was Sussudio.
Can you imagine Sussudio.
Listen, I'm not a legal expert, I'm a comedian, so don't judge my analysis.
But I will say it is weird that she came up
again as the person who is now in charge of this.
I think that someone will have to recuse her somehow, I think.
I'm not quite sure.
I'm sorry, real quickly, just reading the indictment, though,
when you got Bill Barr on the news saying the dude is guilty, and
I'm sure you guys have read the indictment,
he was waving papers around going, hey, this is top secret.
And he goes, but stand over there, you're not supposed to see it.
[LAUGH] The guy's a bozo.
>> I would say the power that Aileen Cannon really has, because again,
Eleventh Circuit handed her her ass before, and I'm sure DOJ is going to seek
interlocutory as in appeals that could happen in the middle of a case running.
But I would really think that a lot of power she'd have is during the voir dire
process when they're choosing the jury cuz that's what Trump is holding out on,
cuz the thought is that you have so much evidence against you.
How are you really gonna win this?
You're gonna win this by way of the jurors not applying the law to the facts during
nullification of them saying, no, we don't wanna go ahead and
apply the law to the facts and do what's right.
And so what you would need is a few like loose cannons in that jury pool.
And so she can kind of help with that process by refusing to allow a juror to
be struck or keeping someone on a panel who she knows is gonna be problematic when
it comes to actually applying the law to the facts.
>> Loose cannon, Adrienne, listen, Maz is here for the puns.
You're here for the [LAUGH] judge analysis.
We can't screw this up.
I'm getting confused.
But your point about potentially changes here could be a slim chance for that
as well because look, people talking about the permanent level of this actually.
Let's go to the graphic here from Twitter account from Joyce Alene.
She said, with the unsealing of this indictment,
it's not clear that this is a permanent assignment more for now.
Of course, as she says, there's the big stamp here on
this document that she posted, put on subsequent pleadings or
other cases that you can tell who the judge is by the initials following
the case number at the top left there and it's AMC Aileen Cannon.
So she apparently is on it for now and we're gonna figure out the next steps of
it, but also, Hugo Lowell tweeted this out new from New York Times as well.
The chief clerk for the Southern district of Florida, Angela Noble confirmed that no
court practice would return the case to be assigned to another judge.
So in short,
Judge Aileen Cannon's assignment is permanent unless she were to step aside.
And where's that pressure gonna come from?
Who knows?
>> Well, to Adrienne's point, if she manipulates the jury,
if we see the pillow guy in the jury, then we know something's up.
>> We'll definitely hear him from the jury,
he's then yelling about have slippers sheets now?
Thousand count, I don't know what the good count is.
>> [LAUGH] >> Something like that-
>> He's got a lot of problems.
That's what he's got.
>> [LAUGH] >> 99 million problems.