Politicians Accepting a 'Gratuity' After Official Acts is Legal, Supreme Court Rules (2024)

Related Topics:Brett KavanaughbriberyKetanji Brown JacksonNewsPoliticsSupreme Court

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Anti-bullying activist Monica Lewinsky called for federal Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case, to be impeached. But what’s the process for that?

“i awakened angry about the documents case in florida. it is INSANE that it hasn’t moved forward to trial, and i hope judge cannon is impeached. IF the documents had been declassified (which they weren’t) then all trump had to do was xerox them and return originals that were being asked for and explain they were declassified (again, for those in back, which they weren’t). IF it had been an honest (ahem) mistake to take them… just return them — LIKE EVERY OTHER PRESIDENT WHO WAS FOUND TO HAVE CLASSIFIED MATERIALS IN THEIR PRIVATE POSSESSION. (which still would have warranted an investigation but maybe not resulted in a trial.) the danger and damage done by this judge is mind-numbing,” Lewinsky posted to X Tuesday morning.

READ MORE:Trump Focuses on Another Federal Judge – This Time Defending ‘Impartial’ Aileen Cannon

Cannon has been a controversial figure in the Trump documents case. The Trump-appointee been frequently criticized for delaying the trial indefinitely so it won’t be decided prior to the November election.She has been holding hearings for many of the defense’s motions, even when precedent says they should be dismissed out of hand.

Legal experts have called her “incompetently bad” and “wildly lawless,” and said she’s “perplexed” by basic rules of law. Multiple experts have predicted she could be removed from the case, though thus far, she’s held tight.

But can Cannon be removed from the case or even impeached? The short answer is yes — but the former is more likely than the latter.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals technically has the power to reassign a judge in cases “where the trial judge has engaged in conduct that gives rise to the appearance of impropriety or a lack of impartiality in the mind of a reasonable member of the public.” according to MSNBC.

Legal analyst Harry Litman said that the 11th Circuit Appeals Court would like to replace her, according to Newsweek. The court may get the chance, Litman said, if she declines to put Trump under a gag order over concerns he would engender threats against those involved in the case. If she refuses, the prosecution would likely appeal. And while Trump has faced gag orders in other trials, Cannon appears skeptical that Trump’s comments would lead to direct threats, according to Politico.

That said, trial judges have a large amount of discretion, which makes a reassignment order difficult, MSNBC reported. And a replacement could lead to further delay.

But Lewinsky specifically called for impeachment; how likely is that?

Not very. Impeaching a federal judge is similar in process to impeaching a president. The House must conduct a vote of impeachment. If it passes, it’s up to the Senate to convict. Only 15 judges have been impeached — the most recent in 2010 — and of those, only eight have been successfully convicted and removed from the bench.

Given that the Republicans control the House, it is unlikely that the House would move to impeach Cannon. (House Republicans did vote in December 2023 to formalize an impeachment query into President Joe Biden, however.)

In the event that the Republicans did move to impeach Cannon, it would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Though the Democrats currently control the Senate, it’s by a razor thin 51-49 margin.

So, barring any utterly egregious behavior from Cannon, it’s likely she’s on the bench for good, whether or not she stays on the Trump documents case.

Featured image of Monica Lewinsky taken from TED Conference/Flickr under the Creative Commons license. The photograph was taken by James Duncan Davidson/TED.

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Former head of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele accused the judge of dragging her feet in former President Donald Trump’s case about improper handling of classified documents.

On Friday, Trump’s defense lawyers put forth a motion to dismiss special counsel Jack Smith under allegations that he was illegally appointed, according to the Associated Press. Despite admitting that Smith’s appointment appears to be supported by precedent, Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon agreed to a three-day hearing to determine the challenge’s validity, according to The Washington Post. While defense attorneys will often challenge the standing of the prosecution, not every challenge necessarily warrants a full hearing.

Steele called out Cannon on Sunday’s edition of Inside with Jen Psaki on MSNBC. Hecalled the particular challenge against Smith a “long shot,” according to The Hill, and said most judges would dismiss it out of hand.

READ MORE: Judge Cannon’s ‘Mind Boggling’ Move Could Put Witnesses at Risk, Experts Warn

“But apparently, Judge Cannon just had to have a hearing about it. It’s the last delay tactic from a judge who’s wasted countless months on frivolous motions. She has all but refused to allow Trump’s case to go to trial and still, still hasn’t even set a date for the trial to begin,” Steele said. He also accused Cannon of “effectively putting the prosecution on trial.”

Cannon has faced much criticism over her handling of the Trump documents case. In May, she postponed the trial indefinitely, putting the kibosh on hopes that the case would be heard before the November election. Her reasoning was that it would be “imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court,” referring to motions like the one to dismiss Smith.

Rulings like this have led legal experts to trash Cannon. Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis called Cannon “incompetently bad.” George Conway, a lawyer and founder of the conservative anti-Trump The Lincoln Project, said Cannon “doesn’t know the most basic rule governing criminal conspiracies.” Conway’s comment was in response to Cannon appearing unfamiliar with the Pinkerton rule, which holds that everyone involved in a conspiracy can be held liable for crimes committed by co-conspirators. This appears to back up NBC News legal analyst Joyce Vance’s statement that Smith has to “spoon feed… the law” to Judge Cannon.

One month ago, Laurence Tribe, a top constitutional scholar and University Professor Emeritus at Harvard, said that Cannon would likely be removed from the Trump documents case.

“Cannon’s wildly lawless rejection of Special Counsel Smith’s clearly correct request for a gag order against fake and dangerous claims that the FBI was ordered to assassinate him is good news,” Tribe wrote on X.“It’s the smoking gun that will finally lead to her removal from the stolen secrets case.”

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Chief Justice John Roberts says it was harder for him to decide to have a fence erected around the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of the ruling that would reverse the 49-year old Roe v. Wade decision than it was to decide that case, which stripped women of their constitutional right to abortion.

The embattled Chief Justice told the 100-year old American Law Institute, which honored him with a prestigious award at their annual meeting Tuesday night, that erecting the fence was actually the hardest decision he’s ever had to make in his nearly two decades as head of the nation’s highest court.

“I’m asked what was the hardest thing? What was the hardest decision I had to make in 18 years? Was it this First Amendment case? Was it that death penalty case? Was it some major separation of powers case? None of those. The hardest decision I had to make was whether to erect fences and barricades around the Supreme Court. I had no choice but to go ahead and do it,” Roberts declared.

READ MORE: DeSantis Tells Evangelicals He Wants to ‘Improve’ Supreme Court So Justices Reflect ‘Gold Standard’ of Clarence Thomas

As The Washington Post noted, those fences and barricades erected around the Supreme Court were “in preparation for protests of the court’s decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion the court had established nearly 50 years earlier in Roe v. Wade. The fences remained for months.”

Unlike the fences and barricades, the decision not only still stands, it has led to total or partial abortion bans in at least 20 states, with more being debated in other states, and some Republicans pushing for a nationwide abortion ban.

Chief Justice Roberts is leading a Supreme Court under fire on several fronts, which has led to historically low approval ratings. In September, just months after the decision to allow states to ban abortion, Gallup found that just “47% trust the judicial branch,” and noted the “previous low was 53%.”

It also found that the Court’s 40% job approval “is tied for record low,” and 42% say the Supreme Court is too conservative, a record-high.

READ MORE: Bombshell Paper Shows Democrats Likely Won’t Regain Majority Control of Supreme Court Until 2065 – Unless They Expand It

Wednesday morning, CNN reported “Americans’ approval of the Supreme Court has fallen since the start of the year, according to a new poll released Wednesday, with 41% of the country saying it approves of the nine justices amid a barrage of media reports and watchdog complaints concerning ethics and transparency at the nation’s highest court.”

Justice Roberts has refused to implement at his Supreme Court the same ethical standards every federal judge, except the nine justices, are required to observe. He has also refused to take significant action against several justices who appear to be in violation of certain ethics reporting requirements, not to mention the appearance, some say, of corruption.

And while he gave lip-service to ethical issues Tuesday evening in his 15-minute remarks, the concerns surrounding the court’s corruption remain, as these headlines show: “A Rare Inside Look at Our Corrupt Supreme Court.” “The US supreme court’s alleged ethics issues are worse than you probably realize.” “The Stench of Corruption Is Growing Stronger Around the Supreme Court.” “Why the Supreme Court Is Blind to Its Own Corruption.”

Watch a short clip of the Chief Justice’s remarks below or at this link.

“I am committed to making certain we as a court adhere to highest standards of conduct…I am confident there are ways to do that that are consistent with our status as independent branch of government under Constitution’s separation of powers”
– #SCOTUS Chief Roberts @AmLawInst pic.twitter.com/v6CEi54NL1

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) May 24, 2023

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