Seething MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Thursday’s Morning Joe discovered that there was in fact, no limit to the depths he would dig to smear Judge Aileen Cannon, who will be presiding over former President Trump’s criminal trial. Putting aside how Trump had appointed her to the bench, the gist of Scarborough’s criticism was that she was too young and too dumb, thus she couldn’t be trusted to oversee the trial.
Scarborough’s vendetta against Judge Cannon, one that was shared by the rest of the liberal media, stemmed from the fact that she made a prior ruling in the case that favored Trump, and was overturned by the Federal 11th Circuit Court. This case was the media’s chance to “get Trump” before the election, and they couldn’t stand the fact Trump didn’t get a hostile, left-leaning judge.
But Scarborough didn’t stop at his criticism of her ruling that got overturned, he went on to paint her as an incompetent, inexperienced fool:
“So you take that with the fact that, you know, some judges have a lifetime’s worth of experience. She has about a lunchtime’s worth of experience. And she's about to hear, unless somebody intervenes, she’s about to hear the most important criminal case in U.S. history.”
Scarborough then brought in New York Times “journalist” Michael Schmidt to argue that she essentially should be removed from the case because of her “inexperience”. Schmidt claimed she was unable to perform basic legal functions such as picking jurors or dealing with attorney-client privilege.
Their absurd argument was that because she hasn’t been a judge as long as some other judges have, she cannot run the trial. Scarborough even admitted that Judge Cannon being selected for the case was “assigned randomly,” which was standard procedure in the courts. Her being on the case was just a normal part of the way the judiciary system works, an impartial process, but it wasn’t enough.
If the requirement Scarborough and Schmidt demand for this judge to well, do her job as a judge, is as they said, having a “lifetime’s worth of experience,” then we would simply not have any judges, because taking cases is exactly how judges get experience.
Scarborough, inevitably, continued to whine, asking for Judge Cannon to recuse herself or be removed by a higher court. This was followed by a stunning promise that “I would say the same thing of the most progressive federal judge ever if they only had 14 hours of trial work.” Given Scarborough’s media history, he likely would not say he same thing of a progressive judge.
For someone who claimed to support the justice system in America and that Trump’s guilt was certain, Scarborough should stop crying that the dice didn’t roll his way and let the trial play out.
Joe Scarborough’s character assassination was sponsored by Ring and Kayak. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
06/15/23
8:03 AM ET
(…)
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: And Michael, you’re part of a New York Times reporting on the team that's looking at Judge Aileen Cannon, that’s the judge who will preside over former President Trump's classified documents case. And apparently she has little experience running criminal cases and may not be ready for a potential trial with a former president. According to the paper, in Cannon's over two-year tenure, just four of the 224 cases the judge has been assigned have gone to trial. Those cases resulted in just 14 days of her sitting as a judge in a trial.
Lawyers who have appeared before Cannon describe her as, quote, ‘generally competent and straightforward’ as well as, quote, ‘someone who does not otherwise have a reputation of being sympathetic to defendants.’
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Unless they're Donald Trump.BRZEZINSKI: However, they also said, quote, ‘she is demonstrably inexperienced and can bristle when her actions are questioned, or unexpected issues arise.’
SCARBOROUGH: Like the 11th Circuit that basically said, ‘congratulations, your ruling has undermined the foundation of American constitutional law.’
BRZEZINSKI: There’s that.
SCARBOROUGH: So you take that with the fact that, you know, some judges have a lifetime’s worth of experience. She has about a lunchtime’s worth of experience. And she's about to hear, unless somebody intervenes, she’s about to hear the most important criminal case in U.S. history.
MICHAEL SCHMIDT: And a complicated one.
BRZEZINSKI: Yeah.
SCHMIDT: One that involves classified information as evidenced, attorney/client privilege evidence that came from lawyers about their own client. You would have to be able to pick a jury of unbiased jurors about someone like Donald Trump who's probably the most polarizing figure certainly in my lifetime.
So, it's an enormous challenge she faced. And we did this thing with The Times research department where we went and found all 224 of the criminal matters that have appeared before her. And we went through on the online docket to see which ones went to trial. And the research department at The Times did this tremendous job and working together we were able to find these four cases.
SCARBOROUGH: Right.
SCHMIDT: And in the four cases we were able to figure out how many days those trials went. So, if I remember correctly, one trial was five days, a few were two or three or four and it added up to this small number, about two weeks of trial experience.
BRZEZINSKI: Fourteen days.
SCHMIDT: And look, you know, federal prosecutors and lawyers will tell you all sorts of things about you know, the law and everything. But they say at a basic level experience is really, really important, especially if you're --
SCARBOROUGH: I, I, you know, I, understand this was assigned randomly. It’s what they say, it’s assigned randomly. Again, in my experience, which is very limited experience, there would be a discussion. And if a federal judge or even a state court judge got a really complex case, if they just weren't qualified to handle, there would be a discussion and the judge would say, you know what, this is, for now this is above my pay grade. This is too complex. Let's move it to another division.’
I'm just curious, again, with the -- and just forget her disastrous ruling where she was humiliated. Forget that. I'm shocked that this continues to move forward and she's not recusing herself because she's woefully ill-equipped to do this. By the way, I would say the same thing of the most progressive federal judge ever if they only had 14 hours of trial work, but she's woefully ill-equipped to handle these issues. So is there no intervening? Is there no way that that Circuit doesn’t step forward and say ‘come on let’s…’?
BRZEZINSKI: Guardrails?
SCARBOROUGH: Let’s get somebody that can handle this?
(…)
