The judge in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case has canceled a tentative Aug. 25 hearing and scheduled a sealed proceeding at a different time “and place to discuss sensitive, security-related issues concerning classified discovery,” according to CNN.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a former federal prosecutor who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020, has been heavily criticized by some legal experts for what they consider “pro-Trump rulings.”
Last week, Cannon ordered that two sealed filings submitted by special counsel Jack Smith be struck from the record altogether and questioned the “legal propriety” of using an “out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings.
“The Special Counsel states in conclusory terms that the supplement should be sealed from public view ‘to comport with grand jury secrecy,’ but the motion for leave and the supplement plainly fail to satisfy the burden of establishing a sufficient legal or factual basis to warrant sealing the motion and supplement,” she wrote in the brief.
Trump is facing 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, according to an indictment unsealed in June that alleges he improperly shared a Pentagon “plan of attack” and a classified map related to a military operation.
Cannon was thrust into the spotlight last year when she issued what many legal experts saw as an extraordinary and unusually broad decision to appoint a “special master” to review the documents seized by the FBI.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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