‘No Basis To Block’ It: MSNBC Legal Analysis Confounded By Judge Cannon Squashing Jack Smith’s Final Trump Report

MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin joined anchor Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday to discuss the surprise ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon temporarily blocking the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his investigations into and two indictments of President-elect Donald Trump.

“We are hearing that Judge Cannon in Florida, based on her throwing that classified documents case out, claiming that the special prosecutor is not legally constituted, did not have the right to investigate that. That has put a hold on the entire the entire prosecution on both January 6th and the classified documents case pending a decision on whether the prosecutor was legally mandated by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal,” Mitchell began, reporting the breaking news:

But the 11th Circuit would be hearing a case that had already been decided in many other districts. The special prosecutors are legal, but this is a case that Judge Cannon and we know that is she has done some very unusual decisions, to say the least, that all favor, you know, Donald Trump in many controversial ways has issued that order temporarily blocking the portion, at least the portion of the report on classified documents that’s raising questions about the jurisdiction.

One senior law enforcement official telling NBC News the Justice Department has concluded that a federal rule in the Southern District of Florida likely means the classified documents portion cannot be made public. They are right on deadline. Incoming Justice Department officials are expected to block the report if this drags out past the inauguration.

And many of them are the defense lawyers that have been issuing the legal briefs to try to block them, who are going to then, if they are confirmed, move over to the Justice Department.

Mitchell then introduced her panel and asked, “Lisa, a lot of legal developments just in the last hour while the president was speaking. He attacked Jack Smith. He attacked Judge Merchan. He attacked the whole prosecution. He misstated a lot of the facts. But there have been developments, specifically judge Cannon’s ruling. Can you explain also the emergency hearing this hour?”

“Well, Andrea, let’s start with Judge Cannon’s ruling. As you noted, Judge Cannon ruled today that she is going to impose a stay on the release of any special counsel report. And according to her order today, that not only applies to the report itself, but also to any information contained in that report,” Rubin replied, adding a lengthy explanation of the various issues at play:

And in both instances, she says, Jack Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of Justice employees and agents and those of the special counsel’s office are precluded from sharing either the report or any information contained therein. Beyond the Department of Justice itself.

That theoretically means that, for example, when the 11th Circuit decides that they want to have a crack at this, that those actors would be precluded from even sharing with the 11th Circuit itself the superior decision maker, the information about the report or even a draft report so that they can make a decision here. It’s not clear to folks like me, Andrea, whether she has jurisdiction.

And that’s because earlier this year she threw out the Mar-a-Lago documents case, explaining that from her reasoning, Jack Smith did not have constitutional authority to bring that prosecution under the appointments clause of the Constitution. And so there is no basis here to block the report, in part because it’s not clear that there’s a case or controversy in front of her. But even if there were the argument that Trump is making that presidential immunity also precludes the release of the report is really a stretch of the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year, the Supreme Court finding that a president cannot be prosecuted, as you know, for acts having to do with his presidency while he is a sitting president.

But here they are trying to say that it has to do with the transition period and therefore, during the transition period, he should also be protected and that he should be protected because this would subject him to some sort of peculiar public opprobrium. You know, Andrea, you and I and others on this network have been discussing the fact that the heart of the a of documents case since June of 2023, when that indictment was first issued, based on what Ken’s reporting and others, our understanding is that this report wouldn’t contain any new information, much less subject the president to opprobrium publicly or force him to expend a great deal of time and energy combating information in the report.

So for all of those reasons. It’s unclear to me why Judge Cannon has done what she has done. The one final thing that I’ll leave you with is that her stay of the release of the report extends beyond any decision by the 11th Circuit. She says that the stay she is imposing will last for three days longer.

It’s unclear to me also why she’s done that. But one possibility is that the 11th Circuit doesn’t sit again until next week, starting on the 14th of next week and going through the 17th. Could it be that she is trying to impose a stay that will last beyond the time at which Donald Trump is inaugurated? That’s one possibility here, Andrea.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.