The judge assigned to former President Donald Trump’s legal battle with the Department of Justice has issued her first order since she was assigned to assigned the case.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ordered the attorneys in the case to each obtain their required security clearances due to the sensitive nature of the matter, CNN reported Thursday.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon jumpstarts her oversight of the Trump classified documents case with an order on security clearances https://t.co/Sgd0VpCp9C
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 16, 2023
“In a Thursday order, Cannon gave ‘all attorneys of record and forthcoming attorneys of record’ a Friday deadline for getting in touch with the Justice Department’s litigation security group so that they can expedite ‘the necessary clearance process,’” the network’s Tierney Sneed reported.
The Trump-appointed judge gave each attorney in the case until Tuesday to comply with the order.
Sneed reported Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Chris Kise had done so as of Thursday evening.
On Tuesday in Miami, the former president and leading GOP contender in the 2024 presidential race pleaded not guilty to 37 counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Special counsel Jack Smith, appointed to look into the former president’s alleged storage and handling of classified documents, brought the case against Trump last week.
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Smith, whose wife directed a documentary about former first lady Michelle Obama and also donated to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland last year.
He was tapped to lead the investigation after Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, was raided by the FBI in August 2022 in search of classified documents.
Ten months later, the DOJ charged the former president with dozens of felonies and accused him of violating the Espionage Act.
Trump has denied the charges and vowed to fight them.
A number of his challengers in the 2024 Republican primary race have pledged to pardon him in the event they win the presidency.
Cannon was assigned to the case in the immediate aftermath of the FBI raid and later agreed to allow the former president to appoint a so-called special master to review the documents in question.
The judge has faced calls to recuse herself from the case over objections from Democrats and the establishment media.
She has offered no indication she intends to do so.
New on Trump Mar-a-Lago docket: US judge Aileen Cannon orders defense counsel to contact DOJ to expedite security clearance process on or before June 16 and file compliance notice by June 20. Cannon does not appear to be recusing this case.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 15, 2023
Cannon was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in May 2020.
She was confirmed to the bench by the U.S. Senate on Nov. 12, 2020, by a vote of 56-21.
