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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Will No One Rid Us Of This Meddlesome Judge? (Thank You 11th Circuit)

Will No One Rid Us Of This Meddlesome Judge? (Thank You 11th Circuit)

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This post is in: 

I once wanted to be an attorney.  I am typically a patient person, but I clearly don’t have the patience for the snail’s pace of legal action.where it takes until Dec 12 to flush a ridiculously awful ruling down the toilet  dismiss this ridiculous case and vacate an order.

PDF of the corrupt judge cannon special master case dismissal.

I have a question for the attorneys in the house.  Is this standard language for something of this nature?  Or is she being pissy?  As in they’re making me do this but it’s not right.

We can celebrate either way, maybe more if she’s pissed off, which she undoubtedly is.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  3. 3.

    Scout211

    I just posted that downstairs. But I am glad we now have a dedicated thread to point and laugh at a federal judge who doesn’t understand jurisdiction.

    Or more likely, a federal judge who just decided to design her own new version!

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    @Scout211: I bet she understood jurisdiction perfectly.  It wasn’t a bad bet to proceed this way anyway.  She was able to delay things for over 3 months, they had high hopes of Supreme Court backing, and if the election had gone the other way (even though we lost the house it wasn’t a rout) that delay might have paid off in spades.

    We have learned these past few years that our institutions are only as strong as the people who are in positions of power in those institutions – and it’s no exaggeration to say that I am thrilled to have Merrick Garland as AG and Jack Smith as Special Counsel.

    Now if only we had someone better leading the FBI.

  7. 7.

    kindness

    We can still be smug about Cannon closing the case because she is ‘forced’ to.  I mean, she had no jurisdiction at all, tried to insert herself like a tick under the layer of Donald Trump’s legal tantrums and instead was yanked from existence.  You know she’s pissed as hell at missing her moment of glory serving The Donald.

    What Kool-Aid flavor are these people swilling anyhow?

  8. 8.

    Barbara

    The 11th Circuit told her to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction — that is subject matter jurisdiction. There is nothing left for her to say that the 11th Circuit did not already say. I didn’t expect her to write a self-lacerating opinion.
    ETA: It took real effort for her to screw it up this badly.  She overlooked straightforward precedent, and made it clear that she’s the kind of judge who doesn’t mind imposing an outcome oriented framework on her cases.  It’s the kind of thing that tends to earn you closer inspection on appeal.​

  9. 9.

    CaseyL

    I’m curious about any other cases Cannon has presided over.  I assume t here have been some, that she hasn’t been sitting around twiddling her thrumbs checking her bank account with nothing else to do these last few months.

    Are attorneys avoiding her court? Can they?

    Is she only hearing cases where her corruption is of use?

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    @Barbara: I didn’t expect that either.  I just didn’t know if this was standard boilerplate language or not.

    I was able to read it as her writing this and flouncing out of the room.  Kind of sorry to find out that I was wrong about that!

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    That bare minimum of prose has a strong whiff of “My mom made me say I’m sorry”, doesn’t it?

  13. 13.

    Mike in NC

    Fat Bastard finally gets a document that he can proudly frame and hang on a wall at Mar-A-Lago.

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    @Amir Khalid: I thought so, too!  Sadly, the attorneys seem to think this is standard language.

    I preferred thinking of it as you did.  Sor-ry!  In that tone of voice that says you’re not sorry at all.

  17. 17.

    CaseyL

    @Barbara: That would be kind of funny, if the only cases that are filed in her Court are the ones where the Federalist Society  or Trump have an interest, and most/all of them get reversed on appeal.

    Do law societies keep track of that sort of thing?  Someone must.  There has to be some kind of info network shared among attorneys, which courts to stay out of.

  20. 20.

    Kenneth Fair

    The problem is the creation of single-judge divisions (e.g. Fort Worth Division) inside federal districts (e.g., Northern District of Texas) and rules that allow for division-shopping to place a case with a particular judge. Here’s a good paper on the topic. The topic examines certain assignments in Texas, but the point is more generally applicable.

  21. 21.

    Cameron

    She could have abbreviated it using the famous quote by America’s greatest philosopher of eschatology: “Eh-de-eh-de-eh-de-eh-dat’s all, folks!”

  23. 23.

    Anonymous At Work

    @WaterGirl: She outed herself and earned a hard smack-down from the 11th Circuit that could color their analyses of her opinions going forward.  She also established precedent over her court about Trump that will be harder to avoid than if she kept her head down and used marginal situations.
    It also caps her advancement except for a blatantly partisan affair that draws attention from this entire situation.  “May you come to the attention of those in power” is not a good thing.

  24. 24.

    grumbles

    I wonder if the payoff for her was just the seat on the bench, or if there’s an ongoing understanding.

    Regardless, Cannon will likely be known as Don’s pet judge for longer than Don will be among the living.

     

    Hm. Bannon… Cannon… Is there a Dannon in his orbit?

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
     

    you get NOTHING. You LOSE. GOOD DAY SIR.

    Except he did get something: he got a 3 month delay. If he can string enough of those together, he can make it through the election without the case moving forward. That’s what he’s after.

  26. 26.

    Joy in FL

    “Trump v. United States” expresses everything about that traitorous, lying, would-be autocrat.

  27. 27.

    Bill Arnold

    @Albatrossity:

    Welch issued her injunction after a group called Hoosier Jews for Choice and five individual women challenged the abortion law under Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU said the plaintiffs represented religions including Judaism and Islam as well as “independent spiritual belief systems.”

    This is very good.
    I had stopped giving ACLU money a while back (don’t like their money-is-speech advocacy); might resume.

  28. 28.

    Msb

    How idiot/corrupt judge feels may vary. Could be p*****, could be (I hope) boiling with humiliation, the 11th circuit having slapped her around so comprehensively.

  29. 29.

    Nettoyeur

    Seems to me that Cannon was saved from the wrath of Trump and Trumpers by the Appeals Court. And I be she was worried about that. That’s the problem when you have been bought by the Mob.

  30. 30.

    Jeffro

    @grumbles: chicken or egg?

    Federalist Society-owned GOP officials get her on the bench = the expectation is that she’ll rule the way they want for the rest of her life.

  31. 31.

    cain

    @Anonymous At Work: She fucked her career – she wasn’t even qualified in the first place and she has proved it with these actions that she is not a great judge and now has the smell of corruption. No Democrat is going to vote for her. She’s capped there. The only issue is that she’ll use her bitterness to harass some cases.

  32. 32.

    CaseyL

    @Jeffro: Well, yes, but: If she gets reversed often enough, and issues enough egregiously bad decisions, any decisions she makes will begin with an assumption of error.

    Attorneys may avoid her Court not only because they won’t want a corrupt/incompetent judge hearing their case, but because they don’t want her stink to rub off on them.

  33. 33.

    cain

    @Jeffro: the whole point of having a life time position is that you don’t have to offer fealty to the mob. She should be able to tell them to fuck off and if they threaten her – sic the FBI on them.

  34. 34.

    hilts

    Trump’s presidency was a crime against humanity and every lawyer working for Merrick Garland, Tish James, Alvin Bragg, and Fani Willis needs to build the strongest possible, airtight case against this monstrous scumbag to win a conviction and hopefully prevent him from ever serving as President again.

  35. 35.

    WereBear

    This is a good time to suggest the streaming service Nebula, which turns out to have a lot of content creators I already follow on Youtube. Only no ads and without wading through what Youtube thinks I should see.

    Story telling tips from The Whole Story using games and superhero movies. Legal stuff explained by Legal Eagle. Societal analysis from J D Signifier. That’s three I’ve found on this new channel, and I’m supporting their work by watching them on Nebula. Also, they are funny.

    It is in a bundle with Curiosity Stream, documentaries from all over the world that I got for Mr WereBear.

    This kind of choice was what we used to be promised. It’s sort of finally happening.

  37. 37.

    UncleEbeneezer

    One important thing about this is that Trump’s attorneys really wanted some of these deadlines to stay in place so that Special Master Dearie would have to report his thoughts (which could be useful to a Trump defense down the line and possibly complicate prosecution).  Allison Gill and Andrew McCabe discussed it on the most recent Jack podcast.  DOJ must be happy about this ruling.

  38. 38.

    terraformer

    one of the surest ways to create negative perceptions of the rule of law

    is to have a judge who so clearly had her foot on the scale for a particular person, a judge who later was chastised and had her rulings thrown out

    who has *zero* personal and professional repercussions for her actions, just gets to go back and continue being a judge

  40. 40.

    Sure Lurkalot

    OT. Disappointed that the WH is considering adding work requirements to advance the child tax credit legislation. I support the credit wholeheartedly and understand sausage sometimes needs to be made but the whole RW skin in the game meme is a bunch of BS. It will make the program far more cumbersome and guess what…when a parent loses a job, the kids still need food, shelter and clothing.

  41. 41.

    Jeffro

    @cain: oh please – she didn’t get through law school, into the Federalist Society, and onto the bench because she has integrity.  She’s there to fix what she can for the GOP.

  43. 43.

    Bugboy

    IANAL, but I don’t see anywhere in the order that is anything but standard legalese.  Certainly no room for attitude.  On its face this should be kind of an embarrassment for her, by confirming the lack of jurisdiction.

    However, I’m afraid the good judge forgot to add “I am not a crank” to the order?

  44. 44.

    Scout211

    Liz Dye has spoken  written.  Trump Special Master Case Dismissed For Being Rancid Dumpster Fire Unrelated To Facts Or Law

    After a withering smackdown 10 days ago from the Eleventh Circuit, US District Judge Aileen Cannon has finally dismissed Donald Trump’s effort to block the Justice Department using documents seized pursuant to a judicially authorized warrant in the August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago. No more special master; no more ban on using lawfully collected evidence to investigate the former president for stealing government property; no more ridiculous arguments that a document can be simultaneously “personal” and subject to executive privilege.

    Which is good, because OMG, SHUT UP that is not how any of this works.

    “This case is DISMISSED FOR LACK OF JURISDICTION. Any scheduled hearings are CANCELED, any pending motions are DENIED AS MOOT, and all deadlines are TERMINATED. The Clerk of Court shall CLOSE this case,” she wrote in a terse order closing forever this chapter of burning humiliation which will follow her for the rest of her career.

    As it should.

    This was a gross, partisan arrogation of power by someone who should never have been anywhere near the federal judiciary. We can’t do anything about Judge Cannon’s life tenure on the bench — please ignore unserious people calling to impeach her, the time for hopium is long since past. But we can make fun of her for being a craven hack who is bad at her job. And we absolutely should!

  45. 45.

    Ruckus

    @kindness:

    “What Kool-Aid flavor are these people swilling anyhow?”

    I’d tell you but it describes the results of a bodily function that we all normally sit down and flush to complete. The worst part is they seem to enjoy the flavor. They must, because it seems to be a big part of their daily intake.

  46. 46.

    Alison Rose

    OT but more good judge-related news: Supreme Court Refuses to Block California’s Ban on Flavored Tobacco

    This shit from the plaintiffs was laughable:

    Allowing a ban on menthol cigarettes, lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote, “could also cause significant negative consequences for communities of color, including African Americans. Because African American smokers in particular disproportionately prefer menthol cigarettes, California’s ban would disproportionately harm them, including by exposing them to negative encounters with law enforcement.”

    This ban is RACIST because it won’t let us keep killing Black people!!!!!!!!!!!!

  47. 47.

    MattF

    Cannon wanted to get on TFG’s ‘good’ side— it’s possible that the truth, that there is no such thing, has dawned on her. But whatever, this particular legal digression is over. There’s worse, much worse to come.

  51. 51.

    Bill Arnold

    @geg6:
    Yeah, very interesting. The Meadows Texts :-); those of us still on twitter will be amplifying it there. “The Twitter Files” is weak sauce.

    TPM has obtained the 2,319 text messages that Mark Meadows, who was President Trump’s last White House chief of staff, turned over to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Today, we are publishing The Meadows Texts, a series based on an in-depth analysis of these extraordinary — and disturbing — communications.

  54. 54.

    Primer Gray (formerly yet another Jeff)

    Now I’ve got Jesse Jackson on SNL hosting the game show “The Question is Moot!” in my head.

    Holy sheep…1984? Damn…

  55. 55.

    New Deal democrat

    I suppose this is old news here by now, but Ken White a/k/a Popehat has left Twitter, and is now posting exclusively at post.net and Mastodon.

    I notice that most of the Econ and COVID accounts I follow have also started actively posting on Mastodon in the past 2 days. For my part, I will no longer actively follow any account that remains exclusively on Twitter.

    I think Musk’s comments over the weekend were the last straw for a lot of people.

  56. 56.

    scav

    All I wish for Cannon over Christmas is loose bowels so she has to stick close to her toilet and repeatedly envision her career circling down same.

  57. 57.

    piratedan

    @Bill Arnold: you and geg6 are seeing the same thing I am seeing…. something I have been ever hopeful for…

    the Meadows texts name the members of Congress who were in on the plot and helped coordinate it (or agreed to look the other way)

    Any sane government would offer up criminal indictments of said legislators and if found guilty, bar them from public office at a minimum.

    These asshats promised us all that there will be investigations, lets see how that plays out with them sitting in jail for seditious conspiracy.

  58. 58.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Allison Gill (MuellerSheWrote) has another great thread on why high level 1/6 charges can’t really happen until the 1/6 Committee is done and has shared all of its’ information with DOJ.

    Imagine you are investigating the crime of Obstruction for Trump.  Cassidy Hutchinson is one of your key witnesses to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.  There’s no way you can proceed until you know that she will be an unimpeachable witness at trial.  You need to read every question that 1/6 Committee asked and how she responded to make sure it doesn’t contradict what she told DOJ.  As Andrew McCabe noted on their podcast “This is such an important point!”  As great as the 1/6 Committee has been for viewers and public awareness of Trump’s crimes, it actually makes the job of DOJ substantially harder and slower.  DOJ is not going to bring an indictment on crimes before it knows the quality of its’ key witnesses

    Added: this also makes the complaints by Schiff about DOJ not moving fast enough even more ridiculous given that he is part of the 1/6 Committee that has been slow to share its’ work with DOJ, thereby preventing DOJ from moving forward.

  59. 59.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Bugboy: 

    However, I’m afraid the good judge forgot to add “I am not a crank” to the order?

    Shouldn’t that be “I am not a witch” ???

  60. 60.

    Roger Moore

    @Alison Rose:

    I hate this shit.  The tobacco companies already bought themselves a 2 year delay in the law being implemented by sponsoring a referendum to overturn it.  The referendum was shot down almost 2:1, which is remarkable because that includes people who reflexively vote “No” on everything voting to throw out the law.  Now they’re trying for more delay with a lawsuit.  It’s an abuse of the system, and they should face some penalty beyond paying for the government’s lawyers for bringing up something so ridiculous.

  62. 62.

    Barbara

    @Frankensteinbeck: ​I don’t think he was after a delay so much as he was after whatever he could get that supported the warrant. And to be honest, Trump is the opposite of strategic. I think it was just a manifestation of ODD.

  63. 63.

    Lynn Dee

    It looks pretty unexceptional to me. She’s pissed, I assume, but the order would likely read the same even if she weren’t.

  64. 64.

    CaseyL

    @New Deal democrat: I’ve been trying to follow the same people on Mastodon that I did on Twitter.

    While I haven’t been able replicate it entirely (as some of my old follows are vowing to stay on the shitbird site until Hell freezes over), enough of them are on Mastodon now that my Home feed there is starting to look a bit like my now-abandoned/de-activated dead bird feed.  It’s nice.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @CaseyL:

    I’m also seeing the move from one site to another as an opportunity to change things up a bit.  I tried to keep my Twitter feed under control by limiting the number of people I followed.  Now that I’m rebuilding my list from scratch, it gives me a chance to include some new people.

  66. 66.

    Origuy

    Popehat has accounts on several servers. He said on mastodon.social that he wants to move to another as that one is blocked by some others. It is TBD where he will end up.

  67. 67.

    Mark Regan

    @Lynn Dee:

    The one slightly pissy line is, “instructing the Court to dismiss the underlying civil action.”  The more neutral word would have been “directing.”

  69. 69.

    TriassicSands

    If ever there was a judge deserving of impeachment and removal from the bench (apart, of course, from all those SCOTUS hacks), it’s Cannon.

  72. 72.

    BruceFromOhio

    We can celebrate either way, maybe more if she’s pissed off, which she undoubtedly is.

    Any of her other signed documents available for examination in hyperspace? I know that I have regular signature, and then angry old guy signature for things like traffic tickets or credit card transactions at perilous times.

    And if she isn’t torqued at these stupid, soulless con men, she ought to be.

  73. 73.

    Skepticat

    @Joy in FL: “Trump v. United States” expresses everything about that traitorous, lying, would-be autocrat.

    My thoughts exactly. And a fitting epitaph.

  74. 74.

    grumbles

    @aretino: Thank you!

    Wow, how could I forget Gannon?

    Actually, I think the answer is there are just *so many* freaks who get their 15 minutes and then… who knows.

    That would actually make a nice short documentary. “Where are They Yelling Now: Republican One-Hit Wonders from Orly Taitz to Jacob Wohl”

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