Judge Aileen Cannon is not playing games with Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Smith was working two grand juries at the same time, one in Florida and one in D.C.
Cannon called him out for having a grand jury working in D.C. while the case had been filed in Florida.
Smith finally shut down the D.C. grand jury after Cannon pressed him to justify the use of it, reported the Washington Post.
Shut It Down
The thought process here is that Smith was using a grand jury in liberal-friendly D.C. in the hopes of adding additional charges to the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
Cannon was on to his games, however, and forced Smith to shut it down.
Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge, has not really played favorites, but she is definitely not allowed Smith to play his usual games in her courtroom.
When Cannon found out about the D.C. grand jury, she ordered the DOJ to "address the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district."
Cannon gave the DOJ until August 22 to address the situation. My understanding is that Smith shut down the D.C. grand jury the week before the deadline.
David Harbach, a member of Smith's team, tried to defend the second grand jury, responding, "Following the indictment in this case, the Government continued to investigate false statements by two witnesses in the District of Columbia, and the hearing before the Chief Judge in the District of Columbia appropriately stemmed from that investigation," reported the Epoch Times.
He was referring to Trump's Mar-a-Lago head of information, who flipped on Trump after getting new counsel.
Harback later added, "Not only was it appropriate to use the grand jury to investigate false statements by Trump Employee 4 and De Oliveira, it was appropriate to use the grand jury in the District of Columbia, where the statements were made and where venue for any false-statement charges would be proper."
While there is no rule that the grand jury has to be located in the same district where the case will be tried, that is generally what happens, but as we have seen in the past when it comes to Donald Trump and Democrats, nothing falls into the usual mold.
