Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb blasted U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon over her handling of the former president’s classified documents case.
Cannon this week ordered Trump’s attorneys and special counsel Jack Smith’s team to submit competing jury instructions, including one that hinges on the Trump team’s claim that the Presidential Records Act gave him authority to deem government records as personal property — a theory widely rejected by legal experts.
“This is a remarkable misunderstanding of the applicable law,” Cobb told CNN on Thursday. “It’s embarrassing. She’s been struggling so dramatically in this case ever since the start when… she butchered the special master decision and the 11th Circuit took her to task for it. This is a totally baffling position.”
Cobb called the theory that the Presidential Records Act, which requires the president to turn over materials from his administration to the National Archives, gives Trump the right to keep records is “absurd on its face.”
“There’s no legal support for that, but she has put Jack Smith in a position of trying to draft jury instructions in advance that would posit that question to the jury. I think that it is such a fundamental error,” Cobb said, adding that Cannon’s rulings “provide a basis for seeking her recusal,” though the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals would have to sign off.
“A month ago, she ordered the identities of witnesses to be disclosed and Jack Smith pointed out to her that that was just not allowable,” Cobb said. “It’s really remarkable some of the things that she’s done that are just fundamentally unhinged.”
Cobb predicted that Cannon does not have “any intention of letting this case come to trial before the election.”
“And to her credit, this is not the only case that she has made fundamental errors in,” he added. “To her credit, she could merely be incompetent.”
