Aileen Cannon is and always has been one of the top examples of ex-'s incompetence and manipulation that we never knew until it was too late. Her behavior throughout what has become the fiasco of the investigation and legal machinations against him being prosecuted for obviously, egregiously, and defiantly violating laws against revelations of important papers to massage his incredible ego has demonstrated that incompetence, and his insistence to place loyalty of personality over loyalty to country.
It has also become an egregious example of rope-a-dope, fighting off a process she didn't want anything to do with, yet didn't seem she could get out of. Until she had a brainstorm, apparently, and got lots of advice from the prime ex-er on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, another sublime example of judicial corruption and incompetence, who seemingly has bailed her out by claiming that a federal statute about special counsels enacted over 30 years ago no longer applies, or doesn't have to apply, even though it's been unchallenged since.
So she's saying: Here. Someone on the Suuuuuuuuupreme Court told me I didn't have to have this trial if I put this roadblock in the way. Of course, she's right. Either way, she'll never see this case again.
But neither might we, if ex- manages another colossal blend of nonsense and now emerging pity party to regain the presidency. He has gone two inches from having the back of his head blown off to four months from ruining the United States of America forever. He will protect Cannon, and himself, though the latter always has been far, far more important. If she's protected, it's only as a residual.
Beyond all that, those papers will never see the light of day. I'm betting he wants to keep them as souvenirs--see how great I am?--and show them to people who come by Mar-A-Lago both during the campaign (which he will) and during and after his new and horrible time in office (where he will most likely charge people money to see them, thus setting up an endless side gig--no emoluments, remember? But that doesn't matter anymore, either, since the papers describe some of the "duties of the office"--while taking on, and running from, the rest of the world).
They won't because the appellate process (her ruling will lose, but it won't matter; see above) takes time, and during that time, he will have gone on to gain office again. One of the first things he'll do is declare that whole effort toward litigation null and void, declare those papers off-limits to anyone but him, and (I'll bet) threaten prosecution toward those who challenge that. If Jack Smith has a cabin somewhere near the Maldives, I'd advise him to repair to it, and soon.
But back to Judge Cannon, who has gleefully set all of this into motion. This isn't about justice. It isn't about keeping some things in government under wraps to protect those who protect us. It's all about her and what appears to be undying loyalty to her liege, from which she can claim, what, brownie points?
She already has everything she needs--a cushy, lifetime job into which she can now crawl back underneath the rock she occupied before she drew the short end and was assigned this incredibly important case for which she's way-way over her head. Otherwise, she wouldn't have devised a method to delay the proceedings by proposing that both sets of lawyers concoct their own rules of procedures--upon which she would have taken her good natured time to evaluate--which she should have automatically distributed and published for them. That figured to take weeks, during which, in one of her darker moments, she probably came up with the idea of reaching out with desperation to Clarence Thomas, whose ethics we now know disappeared long ago. Help me, Daddy! Save me from the bad guys!
I know that sounds horribly sexist, but what else are we to conclude? Appointing a woman to a crucial federal judicial position assumes proper vetting for competence, that things like this, momentous as they are, can be handled by a woman just as interested in equity as the next person. That clearly was not done.
But with ex-, it doesn't have to be done. It's better that it isn't done. Loyalty is the only requirement. It always has been in a fascist state. It will only be repaid if it occurs to him. She may wind up being the next Supreme Court nominee.
For which he laid the start of the groundwork four years ago. Because it's the courts that determine the strength (or lack of it), endurance (or lack of it), and viability (or lack of it) of democracy--or lack of it. This rigged Supreme Court majority has already given him carte blanche to take whatever liberties he wishes, should he regain power. There is only one step left--the crucial one in November, and you can bet that if he loses it, he will invoke the assassination attempt as part of an overriding conspiracy to keep him from power--and claim access to voting processes that, four years ago, were barely prevented from him. He will use all the levers the Constitution affords him, plus the most important one provided him by the Supreme Court, to ruin the Constitution and its meaning.
No, I didn't, and don't, want him shot to death. I wanted him convicted of obvious crimes and sent to jail for the rest of his life, which he so richly deserves.
But the new, desecrated judicial system has already partly been put in place that, if the clock is allowed to run out and the public emerges as really being that stupid, will turn on that same public with the same degree of vengeance that ex- has promised. Our civil liberties will disappear. The civil rights movement will become a relic of the past. Anything resembling good government will, too. We will each be on our own, awash in ex-'s horrible, lying, fetid rhetoric that few will want to hear, much less believe, for at least another four years, if not beyond that, as he has promised to challenge the two-term presidential limit, designed, as it turns out, for ugly buffoons like him.
But that would assume respect for the Constitution, for which he has none, nor anything or anyone else who could possibly stand in his way. Laws will be just words which can be manipulated into favorable meanings, regardless of intent. Opponents are now potential criminals. So go absolutist autocrats, which we will get, and deserve, if we allow that to happen in November. Aileen Cannon just took us a step closer to that terrible fate. She joins an enemies list of lackeys and sycophants who aided and abetted him, a list that will grow with breathtaking speed.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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