Judge Aileen Cannon has reportedly ordered the unsealing of more court records that may disclose aggressive tactics used by federal prosecutors against associates of former President Donald Trump. The news of these documents follows allegations that prosecutor Jay Bratt threatened legal counsel Stanley Woodward in an attempt to turn him against Trump.
According to conservative legal commentator Julie Kelly, Cannon is determined to reveal the details of prosecutorial conduct that she perceives as questionable.
“Aileen Cannon has seen all of these allegedly 32 records that Donald Trump kept, national defense information that threatened the security of the country. She has seen these. And I feel like this is her motive to unseal as much as possible. She just ordered the unsealing,” Kelly disclosed in Wednesday’s interview with Benny Johnson.
The unsealed records are expected to provide a clearer picture of the accusations against Bratt, who led the initial stages of the investigation. This investigation was later handed over to Special Counsel Jack Smith when he was appointed in November 2022.
“Jay Bratt basically [was] threatening Stanley Woodward, a long-time personal aide of the president’s attorney, a few weeks after the armed raid at Mar-a-Lago. He would hold up a potential judicial nomination for this attorney unless Woodward flipped on Trump and became an asset of the government,” said Kelly. Kelly further pointed out that Woodward had been actively challenging these methods in the D.C. District Court, claiming prosecutorial and grand jury abuses.
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“Judge Aileen Cannon knows this is a dirty operation. She knows that this case is garbage. She’s limited as to what she can say or do because of the classified nature of this case. But when she has the opportunity to make this public, she has said she’s siding on the side of transparency,” Kelly continued.
Cannon, a federal judge who was appointed by former President Trump, was assigned to preside over the case regarding classified documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. However, when it came to the criminal case filed by the Justice Department over the mishandling of classified documents, Judge Cannon was not overseeing the matter.
Cannon initially granted Trump’s request for a special master to review the documents seized during the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, a decision that was later overturned by an appeals court.
Other disclosures in the newly released documents indicate that the NARA’s referral to DOJ was handled in part by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland who upgraded the probe to a “full investigation.” Such an action would be at odds with multiple public statements by Garland who emphasized neither he nor the Biden White House would attempt to influence Smith’s investigation.
Critics of special counsel Smith have accused the Biden Justice Department official of criminally conspiring with the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) during an investigation to obtain classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Smith has suffered a number of other setbacks in the case, including the withdrawal of key subpoenas. Some court observers believe a large chunk of his case could be ultimately dismissed, or at least extended past Election Day.
If that were to happen, Trump, if victorious in November, would have the power to dismiss the case against himself.
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