By Julie Kelly | Substack
On March 14, 2024, I was in the media room at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon at the time was presiding over a hearing on two motions filed by defense lawyers representing Donald Trump and his co-defendants seeking to dismiss the classified documents indictment handed down by then Special Counsel Jack Smith in June 2023.
My report on the proceedings is here.
Trump’s defense lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, were in the courtroom that day representing the president. They were simultaneously defending Trump in the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg; it was a fraught time as the president also faced a separate federal criminal indictment in Washington related to January 6. (Those proceedings were on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity.)