Aileen Cannon’s Order Lays Into Jack Smith’s ‘Inadequate’ Plea

Judge Aileen Cannon has criticized special counsel Jack Smith’s “sweeping request” to censor FBI interviews in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case.

In the latest exchange amid ongoing accusations between the pair, Cannon said, “The Court finds the Special Counsel’s sweeping request and generalized rationales inadequate to overcome the public’s common-law interest in access to these materials.”

Cannon, a Trump appointee, is overseeing the case, in which the former president is accused of illegally retaining classified documents, hoarding them at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and obstructing attempts by federal officials to retrieve them. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He has denied any wrongdoing in the case and has said the documents he retained were personal.

In an order on April 10, Cannon refused to censor FBI interviews with Walt Nauta, Trump’s former personal assistant, who is alleged to have hidden classified documents at Trump’s request.

Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker, are accused of moving boxes of sensitive materials around Trump’s Florida home to prevent federal agents from finding them and conspiring to delete security footage that had been sought under a subpoena.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to all federal charges against them, including conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Smith has repeatedly told Cannon that he does not want the names of FBI witnesses to be disclosed to the public because of the intimidation potential witnesses in other cases involving the former president have received from Trump supporters. Trump’s lawyers, however, have long opposed the censorship of witness identities in the case.

In Wednesday’s order, Cannon partially granted Smith’s request to censor names in government documents, writing, “The Court finds that the Special Counsel’s asserted witness safety and harassment concerns are sufficient, at this juncture, to (1) shield the names of potential government witnesses and ancillary names in the Motions and in the attached transcript of Defendant Nauta’s voluntary FBI interview, and (2) replace those names as applicable with anonymous descriptors.”

However, she strongly rejected another of Smith’s censorship requests.

“With respect to the substantive statements contained in Defendant Nauta’s FBI interview, the Court reaches a different conclusion,” Cannon wrote.

Newsweek has contacted Cannon’s and Smith’s offices for comment via email.

In making the order, Cannon directed Nauta to attach his FBI interview transcript to a motion he planned to file and redact “the names of any potential government witnesses and ancillary names.”

Cannon wrote that the rationale for refusing Smith’s censorship request was “similar but stronger” than the reasons she gave on April 9.

Tuesday, Cannon wrote a strident criticism of Smith while granting his request to redact the names of witnesses in the case. She mentioned Smith’s supposed failures eight times while conceding that it was best to censor the names of government witnesses.

Much of her criticism was of Smith’s alleged failure to state adequate reasons that the names of government witnesses should be protected from public view.

In the April 9 ruling, Cannon wrote that Smith had failed to provide an adequate argument against a press coalition that was fighting to prevent the censorship of documents in the case.

“The Special Counsel had two opportunities to raise these arguments and failed to do so in both instances. The Special Counsel’s initial Seal Request failed to offer a governing legal framework or any factual support for the relief sought,” she wrote.

“Later, in response to the Press Coalition’s Motion, the Special Counsel failed to engage with—let alone refute—the Press Coalition’s argument that the First Amendment attached to the subject materials.”

Cannon also said Smith failed to comply with the rules on sealing sensitive court filings.

She wrote, “And this is to say nothing of the Special Counsel’s failure to comply with this District’s Local Rules on sealing, which the Court has emphasized repeatedly throughout this proceeding.”