'Anything but normal': Neal Katyal slams Judge Cannon's 'laughable' hearings
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is letting former President Donald Trump's classified documents trial get bogged down in debates and issues that no reasonable judge would have to devote this much time and energy to, former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal told MSNBC's Joy Reid on Monday evening.
This comes after Cannon held a hearing on whether to remove or defund special counsel Jack Smith from the case altogether — an idea she seemed to be skeptical of, but that was highly unusual for her to even devote a hearing to in the first place.
"Please tell us how unusual was it for this hearing to take place, and what new could have possibly been learned on today?" asked Reid.
"Well, Joy, I really like the way you started by saying if these were normal times. Because this hearing today and these hearings before Judge Cannon are anything but normal," said Katyal.
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"She's been entertaining days of arguments about whether the special counsel is unconstitutional," Katyal continued. "Which is pretty much a laughable argument. You know, I had the privilege of drafting the special counsel regulations back in 1999, a long time ago. I can tell you that we went and presented them to the House and Senate leadership, including Republicans, including their top Republican lawyers for the House and Senate. Everyone thought they were constitutional. Nobody thought there was any possible problem. And indeed, as you said, they have been repeatedly — this question has been repeatedly litigated, repeatedly lost."
"This is an enormous waste of time," he concluded. "And these are specious arguments, but I think that's too generous. There's no plausible interpretation of the regulations where the precedent and tradition that surrounds them that would justify the way Judge Cannon has entertained these arguments so far."
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