Cannon put a 'blocker' to limit Trump's other criminal cases from going to trial: expert
Nobody believes Trump's classified documents case is going to see a trial on May 20 where it's currently penciled in.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann on MSNBC's "Alex Wagner Tonight" said he believes that date set by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon might as well be written in crayon because he doesn't think it's happening and suspects any other prosecutors or judges — even Trump's own defense counsels — involved in Trump's sprawling cases feel the same.
"I have a cynical take on the trial date, which is I think judge cannon was trying to use it as a blocker, meaning that it was sitting there and it was a day that she had said to put restrictions on where other people could move," said Weissmann. "What I find interesting is that it is so obvious that everyone is like 'There is no way that that is happening!' and I think as Judge Chutkan, and the New York judge, we are not even going to take it seriously because it is so obvious."
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He noted that it's as sure as the sun rising in the morning that the date won't stick.
"People are just, like 'We know that is not happening,'" said Weissmann. "And in fact Donald Trump's own lawyers have been saying that trial cannot possibly go."
"So they said that she was trying to use it as a blocker."
The notion is that while suggesting she would consider pushing back the May date in March, she has left it intact strategically.
"Everyone in the system knows that is not happening," Weissmann added.
Trump was charged over the summer with 37 criminal counts involving his alleged mishandling of classified materials that federal prosecutors say he not only brought with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, but then refused the government's efforts to return hundreds of highly classified documents including nuclear secrets and defense deterrence capabilities.