Cannon walking the edge

She doesn't want to get slapped down by the 11th Circuit again.

[Trump's lawyers] contended the [Mar-A-Lago search] warrant was unconstitutionally vague and the FBI affidavit, used to convince the magistrate judge to find there was probable cause for a crime at the club, contained contextual omissions.

[...]

[In a hearing today,] Aileen Cannon suggested she considered the warrant was sufficiently specific about what items FBI agents could seize at Mar-a-Lago, and told Trump’s lawyers the omissions would have made no difference on whether there was probable cause.

[...]

The attempt by Trump to suppress the Mar-a-Lago evidence came through a request for a Franks hearing, where a judge applies a four-part test to decide whether false or misleading statements in the affidavit meant the evidence obtained through that search needed to be suppressed.

[...]

The evidence Trump’s lawyers presented was limited to complaints that the FBI agent omitted the fact that some top FBI officials preferred a consensual search of Mar-a-Lago, the FBI tying the need for a warrant to the National Archives, and Trump did not need a security clearance as president.

[...]

Trump’s request was ambitious because the legal threshold to get a Franks hearing is onerous. Trump needed to make a “substantial preliminary showing” that the affidavit had parts that were recklessly false.

  The Guardian

But he got his hearing, didn't he?

Cannon's ruling doesn't mean a lot. Other than that she can stay on the case and help Trump in all her other many ways. Like granting a Franks hearing on bullshit claims.*

And...

[On Tuesday morning, at a sealed hearing, Trump asked Cannon] to revoke prosecutors’ access to memos made by his ex-lawyer [Evan Corcoran] that became key evidence of his efforts to obstruct the investigation.

[...]

The sweeping request could have far-reaching consequences since the memos – with, for example, Trump asking whether they could ignore the subpoena, or a later suggestion to “pluck” out some classified documents instead of returning them to the FBI – are the strongest evidence of Trump’s obstructive intent.

Even if the judge excludes only some of the passages, it could dramatically undercut the strength of the obstruction case.

In the worst case for prosecutors, their evidence of Trump’s obstructive intent could be reduced to CCTV footage of boxes being moved at Mar-a-Lago by his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, logs of Trump’s calls with Nauta, and testimony about Nauta’s movements.

Trump faces a struggle to get Cannon to overturn the initial ruling by the then chief US district judge Beryl Howell in Washington DC. But Cannon has previously ruled for Trump on evidentiary disputes, most recently removing a paragraph in the indictment about Trump waving around a classified map.

  The Guardian

I doubt it's much of a struggle.

The original thinking on Trump’s legal team was to concede that some of the memos could conceivably be subject to the crime-fraud exception, such as when Corcoran told Trump he would be searching the storage room, and Corcoran’s confirmation about when he intended to return to Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s lawyers have since rejected that approach, reasoning that any concession could give the judge an off-ramp to wholly deny their request, whereas asking for all the memos to be struck would be a stronger argument and lead the judge to strike even some of the memos.

She'll do her best to help them out.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

*UPDATE 06/27/2024:  It seems Trump DIDN'T get the Franks hearing.  I misunderstood.