Trump judge presses his attorneys on ‘shadow government’ claims in Jack Smith hearing

After hundreds of complaints against her, and one day after a report revealed that she ignored other federal judges who urged her to step away from the case, District Judge Aileen Cannon kicked off the first of a three-day series of hearings in Donald Trump’s classified documents case.

Cannon has indefinitely delayed a trial against the former president. So the hearings in her Florida courtroom are instead putting special counsel Jack Smith under a microscope.

On Friday, Trump’s attorneys and his allies argued that Smith — who brought federal charges against the former president — was unlawfully appointed as special counsel. Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, appeared somewhat skeptical of their long-shot arguments, which join a long list of motions to dismiss the case.

But she also questioned whether Attorney General Merrick Garland has oversight of the case, and took the unusual move of allowing nonparties who support Trump to argue in front of her.

At the center of Friday’s arguments was a claim from Trump’s attorneys that Attorney General Merrick Garland does not have legal authority to appoint a special counsel because, they argue, Smith is a “principal officer” who needs Senate approval.

Cannon appeared to cast doubt on that argument, telling attorneys that judges in a similar case involving Robert Mueller did a “fairly comprehensive review.”

She also pushed Trump’s attorneys to explain what they meant by saying that Smith’s position amounted to a “shadow government.”

“That sounds very ominous,” she said. “But what do you really mean?”

She asked whether that is “realistic” given the “well-defined” regulations surrounding independent special counsels, and that it wasn’t “fair” to “cast aspersions in