Donald Trump’s former White House lawyer has attacked the judge handling the criminal case involving classified documents for repeated delays and “incompetence” – while the US attorney general this week separately criticized Trump’s claim as “dangerous” that the FBI had permission to shoot him during his trial. research.
Former presidential counsel Ty Cobb said decisions by Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointed U.S. District Court judge in Florida overseeing the federal documents case, all but guaranteed the case would not be heard before the November presidential election.
He attributed her recent rulings, which further delayed the ongoing legal process on issues that most federal judges would have long addressed, to “incompetence” and “perceived bias” and said the case should have already gone to trial.
“I don’t think this case will move,” he said. “And I think the fact that she’s scheduling hearings, multiple hearings, one or two motions at a time, is compelling evidence of that…
“This is a case that should have started trial yesterday or two days ago when the original trial date was set… only her incompetence and perceived bias prevented that.”
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Meanwhile, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said at the Justice Department in Washington DC on Thursday that Trump’s claims that the FBI was authorized to shoot him during the 2022 search of his Florida club during a cover-up investigation of secret documents. were “false” and “extremely dangerous”.
Garland told reporters that the former president and some of his allies had referred to a “standard operating plan” that limits when federal agents can use deadly force when executing search warrants.
The FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022 to retrieve classified material he kept after leaving office. Agents have found a slew of data that led to one of the four criminal charges Trump is currently facing.
Ahead of the search, the FBI created a policy statement, made public this week, that authorizes law enforcement agencies to use deadly force only if an officer or other person is immediately threatened. Trump was not present when the search took place.
Trump falsely claimed in fundraising messages sent by his campaign this week that the FBI had been authorized to shoot him.
“TRUMP’S BREAKING: BIDEN’S DOJ WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME! It has just been revealed that Biden’s Justice Department was authorized to use DEADLY FORCE for their HORRIBLE raid on Mar-a-Lago,” according to fundraising emails.
Garland, who oversees the FBI as attorney general, said such policies are routine and were also in place during consensual searches of Biden’s homes conducted by the FBI in a separate investigation into classified documents.
“This accusation is false and extremely dangerous,” Garland told reporters at a news conference announcing a lawsuit against concert promoter Live Nation.
Trump, who is currently awaiting a jury verdict in a New York trial accusing him of falsifying documents related to the payment of hush money to an adult film actor, is accused of mishandling classified documents after White House and obstructing an investigation to recover the case. them.
Although Cannon has denied efforts by the former president’s lawyers to have the case dismissed, she has faced criticism from legal analysts and Democrats for taking months to rule on individual motions, delaying the case in an election year .
Democrats say her actions serve Trump’s strategy of delaying a trial until after the November election and having the case dismissed if he wins.
This month, Cannon postponed the trial date indefinitely, citing the need for the court to determine how classified information would be handled during the proceedings – even though such proceedings fall under the Classified Information Procedures Act (Cipa). .
Cobb, who was appointed Trump’s counsel despite not voting for him, has previously criticized conduct that left the ex-president facing 88 criminal charges in numerous cases.
“The facts are terrible. His behavior is reprehensible,” he told MSNBC in February. He previously called Trump “the greatest threat to democracy we have ever seen.”
Cobb served as counsel to the then-president during former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Reuters contributed to the reporting
