The lawyers for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump tried to convince U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon today that the laws about classified documents are so vaguely worded (in the World War I-era Espionage Act) that the criminal charges against him should be dismissed. It didn’t work, as Cannon denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the case on grounds of unconstitutional vagueness.
JUST IN: Judge Cannon DENYING Trump’s Motion to Dismiss Counts 1-32 based on unconstitutional vagueness.https://t.co/kkcxLnwO8E
— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) March 14, 2024
Former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman, who also teaches constitutional law at UCLA, was following the “legal jousting” between prosecutor Jay Bratt and defense lawyer Emil Bove in Cannon’s court.
Litman painted a surreal picture of the proceeding writing on X: “There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to the Cannon hearing w/ Trump as Humpty Dumpty saying words — eg unauthorized possession or national defense info — mean (or don’t mean) whatever I say, and Cannon the Red King dispensing capricious justice.”
[Lewis Carroll, who featured Humpty Dumpty in ‘Through the Looking Glass,’ wrote: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”] But Cannon’s role as Red King, at least today, was unearned.
There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to the Cannon hearing w/ Trump as Humpty Dumpty saying words — eg unauthorized possession or national defense info–mean (or don’t mean) whatever I say, and Cannon the Red King dispensing capricious justice. The unifying point is that
— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) March 14, 2024
Litman added: “The unifying point is that Trump is advancing exotic (at best) arguments that a) are frivolous to absurd but b) are basically factual contentions he can try to trot out at trial, not bases for dismissing the case.” Cannon, too, was evidently unified in this belief.
CNN reported early this afternoon that Judge Cannon “expressed skepticism” toward Trump’s argument that the classified documents case should be dismissed under the Presidential Records Act (PRA), “which Trump has claimed allowed him to make the documents his personal papers.”