https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IosHp7M707M

Transcript:

Donald Trump and his stoogge judge Eileen Cannon are being called out before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for trying to destroy volume two of special counsel Jack Smith's report in connection with his criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump

One of course involved Trump's conduct relating to the January 6th insurrection.

That's volume one

Volume two relates to Donald Trump taking highly classified and uh sensitive information like potentially nuclear secrets and hiding it at Mara Lago and then obstructing justice

That was the criminal case before Judge Eileen Cannon

You'll recall that she dismissed the case on some frivolous basis saying that the special counsel is unconstitutional.

She was the only judge to ever make that type of ruling

And then after Trump won the election, the appeals in that matter were essentially mooded

But the only issue remaining before Judge Cannon that has been remaining is because all of the files and documents regarding the Mara Lago document case were before her

She just needs to basically issue a release of the documents, specifically special counsel Jack Smith's report volume two, which lays out the special counsel's findings regarding the crimes that Donald Trump was being prosecuted for.

But you see, what Judge Cannon did for over a year was do nothing

Uh after Donald Trump won the election, she refused to make any rulings at all, especially while the DOJ switched over from the Biden DOJ to the Trump DOJ

She took no action

And because she took so long to do anything where she was supposed to make some ruling one way or another regarding the uh report prepared by special counsel Jack Smith, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals had to actually intervene.

That's the circuit court that oversees the Southern District of Florida court

Uh Canon's in the Fort Pierce division

And they said, "Cannon, you've got to make a ruling one way or another regarding this report so it can come back to us and we can decide what happens with the report." In any circumstance, this report should be released.

This isn't a controversial topic

You know, special counsel reports are released

If there's highly classified information in the report that gets redacted when we know all about redactions right now, but then that should be released to the uh public

And so after the 11th Circuit made that ruling, Judge Eileen Cannon set an elongated briefing schedule to try to delay even more and push this into like January and February of 2026.

And then so what happened was Donald Trump in his private capacity said these documents that that from come from Jacksmith they should be destroyed

And then Walt Na the other defender remember Na was involved in that one

He said not only should the documents be suppressed they need Jacksmith's report and all of the documents they need to be burned.

They need to be incinerated

I kid you not

They said destroy order that it be destroyed

And then the Department of Justice, which is supposed to be justice, is the one supposed to say, you know what, these documents by law are required to be released with proper redactions

But here, because the DOJ, as you now know, has no credibility at all, and it's just an arm of Trump's fascism, they basically said, "We agree.

We basically join." Right

The DOJ is supposed to be on one side of the V and the criminal dependent on the other

They're like, "No, no, we agree

Do whatever you want, judge

We're not opposing what Trump and NA want

Destroy

It's fine

So then this group called the Night First Amendment Institute.

They're a group at Columbia University

They then tried to intervene representing the public before Judge Eileen Cannon

and they did a petition saying, "Look, judge, if you're going to adjudicate this and you rule in favor of Trump and the DOJ to destroy this, there hasn't been any opposition because Trump and the DOJ are now both the bad guys.

So there needs to be some op just stay the destruction of the documents in the report

So at least the 11th circuit court of appeals can weigh in because even though the 11th circuit tends to skew more conservative, more rightle leaning, nobody would say destroy these records

But what happens if the district court orders the immediate burning and destruction

The DOJ has it.

So imagine you have canon issue cannon issues an order and immediately the DOJ is ready to hit delete they destroy it and then when the 11th circuit finally says actually we want to intervene here then the DOJ says ah it's moot we just followed the judge's order and we hit destroy right away so this is an extraordinary petition you know where as a law professor this intrigues me you know and as someone who cares about our country and transparency

It's critical.

But you don't see things like this ever filed

So when I'm looking at it, I'm like, "Oh, this is an interesting argument." Because this never had to be done

Normally the DOJ would be the one saying, "Release it

Of course, release it

That's what the law requires you to do." So here, this group at they do great work, the First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

They've said, "Look, we reached out to Judge Cannon

She's ignoring our petition to intervene

So we haven't got a ruling there

She's doing the cannon and we're really worried that what's about to happen 11 Circuit is she's going to make this order, destroy the records, destroy the documents

And so we we want to put this on your radar.

And I think what they want to do via this mandamus process which again is extraordinary and there's like not a lot of precedent for even doing something like this

But I think what they want to at least put on the 11 circuits radar is for them even suanti meaning on their own initiative take the extraordinary relief and just say something like even though you may not have standing right now hey judge cannon don't destroy no we it's it's our understanding that any destruction would be illegal like get the 11 circuit to do something here put

it on their radar and hope they say something because it's a tough argument to appeal something where your petition has not been ruled on yet because what's the basis of of of appellet jurisdiction when the underlying judge hasn't hasn't yet ruled

But here they're saying Judge Cannon's doing this intentionally as part of a scheme with Trump and that's why you were involved before 11th Circuit

Do something

Do something.

Harry, this is quite extraordinary

Let's call in Harry Litman from the Talking Feds YouTube channel, Talking Feds podcast, and Talking Feds Substack

Right, Harry

This is, you know, an extraordinary thing and I think it's the right move

I think we can debate whether they have standing to make this appeal.

Um, and that's a but the 11 circuit, hello 11 circuit, you got to do something here

Look, the whole thing is a farce and it's part of the farces that they mount every day because as you say, the the V point that you raised, Ben, is the big one

The whole this is constitutional

You have to have the whole way that our uh judicial system works is adversaries uh go on either side of an argument and make it concrete and make it precise and do their best so a court can rule.

This is just like the Trump supposed lawsuit for 230 million or 40 billion

Why not

Because of the prosecutions he had before

Just like the Steve Bannon complete uh complete whitewash where they're getting rid of that case

What is presented to a court as DOJ or United States v canon blank is not that at all

They are colluding.

They're both saying the same thing

And the point you're making would be the same on appeal if she actually You're totally right and I'll come back to it in a moment

But she sits on her douff for over a year with no justification at all

But if and when she actually rules for now and Trump whom she has permitted to intervene even if she hasn't done that for the night institute then what they get it wrong there's nobody who will file the notice of appeal to the 11th circuit.

So we can talk in very intricate legal terms about whether as you say the extraordinary um recourse to a rid of mandamus is the right way to go and will there be standing or not but I think the 11th circuit is quite aware of what's going on

One of the things that make this interesting when she was really not just botching it, throwing the case in every which way, there was a lot of pretty good behind the scenes sort of um reporting that the 11th circuit found her to be an embarrassment.

We know the chief judge of her district found her to be told her don't take don't take this Mara Lago case and she did it anyway because she is she's in on the game

She's the uh her the only thing she thinks about is Donald Trump and what that could avail her and God knows uh that's you know everybody else in within the judicial system for her lifetime will now I think h has permanently lost um respect for her.

But now back to what she did

She just lets it go for a year

And at that point when she's forced to say something, she said, "Okay, now I'll consider what to do." And she invites Trump to intervene, which he does

And remember what we are talking about first

The strongest, everybody agrees

This is a case that was pretty much open and shut against uh Trump, not only for just prolining all the documents, but the obstruction case was overwhelming and uh the you know they had it on video and he you know he so plainly uh violated both obstruction rules and

rules about prloining of national security documents which remember what his defense was basically

I can do whatever I want

I can declassify magically in my head while sleeping or I can just um you know nobody's permitted

He was going to lose that case

Now it all goes away

But what is left

What is left for the democracy to try to reckon with what happened and try to prevent things in the future

Some kind of historical accounting.

I mean it is on the one hand vital for us to understand and on the other now that NATA and de Ola's cases have been dismissed and they are final what's on their side that they should say um smother this and shredded from the from the view of history forever basically nothing they're not you know there's no whatever is going to come out in Smith's report well for one will be truthful but for two the the national interest is so much stronger here.

But a judge who thinks I'm here to do one thing only and that is um follow Donald Trump's interest could exactly as you say now that there's a collusive case basically where DOJ and uh NA dea and Trump as intervenor are all on the same side

She's got in her hands the ability to issue an order that then doesn't get contested

So the 11th Circuit could be kind of hard asses about this and could say here are the narrow circumstances in which the rid of mandamus can be satisfied.

But I think they are on to canon, long since onto canon

and the public consequences that really go way beyond this case, but to the actual ability for the democracy to have an honest accounting of a whole uh part of the two cases against him

Remember when Smith testifies, uh the DOJ says, "You can't talk about this other one, but we won't tell you what you can't say.

" you know, it's it's an outrage sort of, you know, two or three times over the initial one because of the injustice of of dismissing it, but now not even the pale second uh uh ability to to have a historical account of what occurred

That's again, that's like Orwellian totalitarian stuff

and she's just the person to uh try to make that happen.

So, Lemon Circa, we should we should follow it closely

Even if it's not completely kosher, uh they may find a way and I think at least they can issue some kind of statement saying Eileen Canon, don't just do this until we say it's okay

And even that would be a big deal cuz exactly as you say, they're perfectly capable of colluding.

And so ordered and now it's all deleted

Sorry judge

Sorry country

Sorry history

That that's what they could be going at without some grownup judicial supervision

Right

I mean Harry, while they go on Fox, which I call state regime media, and say the report would vindicate us, it's all a lie

And here's the truth.

You know, that to me is the biggest tell

And it's like, duh

But when I when I try to tell people, I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, independent, whatever

It's the same thing kind of with the Epstein files

It's like, why are there these redactions

Why are they hiding it

Why are they going through this process

Set aside your political views.

Who wants to get the information out

Who wants to hide the information

And then it's the same thing over here

They're willing to go on Fox

So, if you're willing to go on Fox, then guess what

release the report

If you think that there are defects in it, go and legally defend it and you can go through it line by line and you can say, "Look, Jack Smith got it wrong here or Jack Smith got it right here.

" That's just what we do in our system

That's the way I studied in law school

You studied in law school, not because I wanted to go on and be a great Democrat or an independent because that's what we do

We read documents and we get information

And this is why this this is why this is why I made this my life's mission to expose this stuff because this is crap.

It's just not just crap. >> And power to you, Ben, that you have and you know the mightest mighty unbelievable army of fighting every day

But it's it's even bigger than that

Yes, you do documents

Yes, you made arguments

This is the stuff of history

It's a concerted effort literally to whitewash the history books as you have in totalitarian regimes that just present false accounts state sanction that is so kind of down the middle or a cornerstone of what it means to live in a democracy.

Why we have a first amendment

If just as you say, you've got something to actually counter

Well, take it to the court of history, which is the only court again because of the uh happen stance of the election

Uh the only court that this is going to be adjudicated in

But man, the difference between that court and nothing whatsoever, that's just the difference between a, you know, hanging on by its fingernails democracy and a totalitarian regime.

Make sure everybody hits subscribe to our YouTube channel, but most importantly, subscribe to Harry Litman's YouTube channel

Search Talking Feds now

Make sure you subscribe to Harry's channel

Harry, always great to see you. >> Oh, yeah

Thanks, Ben

See you

Thanks for watching Talking Feds

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Pub: 15 Feb 2026 02:54 UTC

Views: 6