What if I told you Judge Aileen Cannon has been working for years to get this case thrown out?
Judge dismisses Donald Trump’s classified documents case
Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Donald Trump’s classified documents case, ruling that the special counsel’s appointment was unlawful.
It would be easy to get angry at this point about how law and order is alleged to apply to everyone in America, but former President Donald Trump keeps being issued get-out-of-jail-free cards by judges he appointed.
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It happened again Monday when the judge overseeing Trump’s federal case for allegedly taking and concealing classified documents after leaving office decided to rule counter to decades of established law and precedence to just toss the case out of court.
That’s frustrating to fair-minded people, no matter what political party you belong to. We’re told as children that nobody is above the law in America and we hope as adults to see that hold true.
But this would be a good time to press pause on our frustration because U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, nominated in April 2020 by Trump for the Southern District of Florida, is likely to face some judgment about her judgment.
We’ve been here before. It didn’t go so well for Cannon.
Judge Aileen Cannon did her part in the Trump document case
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Cannon’s ruling has nothing to do with the merits of the case. Instead, she grabbed hold of a fringe legal argument that Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed in November 2022 by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the investigation, was improperly selected.
Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury and charged last summer. His entire legal strategy since then has been to delay delay delay while painting the prosecution as a political vendetta as he seeks another term as president.
In this, Cannon has always seemed more like an eager collaborator than an impartial judge, dragging out the process and leaving legal motions in limbo while sparring with prosecutors. All the while, the clock is ticking down to the Nov. 5 general election. A Trump victory would make the case simply vanish.
Decision to throw out document case started years ago
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One of Trump’s opening gambits in the case in 2022, months before charges were filed, was to ask Cannon to prevent prosecutors from examining the thousands of documents it found – some marked confidential or top secret – in boxes strewn across the ex-president’s private club in Florida while executing a search warrant.
Cannon played along, shutting down the prosecutors and appointing a “special master” to sift through the documents.
Smith appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, known for a certain right-leaning tilt on the political scale, where the case was heard by three judges, including two appointed by Trump.
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Those judges, in December 2022, reversed Cannon in a 21-page ruling that ended with what amounted to a scolding for her for what amounted to an attempt at a “radical reordering” to limit how federal judges act in criminal investigations.
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“The law is clear,” they wrote. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”
Let’s not forget the Supreme Court’s role in all this
That’s the way the law is supposed to work. Everyone is equal. Unless, of course, the U.S. Supreme Court decides otherwise.
The other recent development that has law-and-order fans freaking out was the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling that Trump has immunity for any “official acts” he took as president while attempting to overturn the 2020 election but can still be tried in a separate case in federal court in Washington, D.C., for any “unofficial acts” he took in that attempt.
Justice Clarence Thomas joined the court’s other six conservatives, three appointed by Trump, in that 6-3 ruling but couldn’t resist helping Trump on a legal point that was not part of the case – writing a concurring opinion that questioned whether Smith’s appointment as special counsel was legal.
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Thomas opened the door for Cannon to toss the documents charges against Trump. And that’s just what she did.
Trump legal cases still out there to be dismissed
Cannon tucked her ruling Monday into a news cycle already ramped up to full bore, between the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania on Saturday and his selection of a vice presidential running mate at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday evening.
Trump, who briefly called for unity after surviving Saturday, was right back at his usual rhetoric Monday, casting his legal troubles as “Political Attacks” while celebrating Cannon’s ruling on his social media site, calling for dismissal “of ALL the Witch Hunts.”
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That included the case pending in Washington, a pending criminal case in Georgia on attempts to overturn the 2020 election there, the civil case where he was found liable for sexual assault, the criminal case in New York where he was convicted on 34 felony counts, and a civil case where he was fined $454 million for running a real estate business rife with fraud.
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So many cases. And only one Judge Cannon.
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Trump sees all politics as transactional – if he does something for you, he will expect something from you. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and avid social media troll, said the quiet part out loud Monday in a post on the site previously known as Twitter with Cannon’s official portrait, calling her “Future Supreme Court Justice Cannon.”
Speaking of the Supreme Court, the justices took a pass in October 2022 when Trump asked them to overturn the 11th Circuit, which had just overturned Cannon.
If the special counsel successfully appeals the new Cannon ruling and revives the documents case, Trump will certainly try his luck again with our highest court.
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Then we’ll find out just how many get-out-of-jail-free cards the conservative justices are willing to deal him.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
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Bank of America’s profits slipped in the second quarter as results from the second-largest lender in the US pointed to the growing strain of higher interest rates on banks and borrowers.
BofA’s profits fell 7 per cent to $6.9bn, a smaller drop than the 10 per cent analysts had projected.
But BofA said interest income fell for the third quarter in a row, even as lending rose as customers demanded higher rates for their deposits.
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The bank’s provision for loan losses also rose by more than a third from a year ago to $1.5bn. However delinquent loans, which peaked last quarter, fell $400mn in the quarter to $5.4bn.
Like other large banks, BofA benefited from a rebound in deals and other Wall Street activity. Fees from investment banking rose 29 per cent in the quarter from a year ago.
Revenue from sales and trading was up 7 per cent from a year ago, its ninth consecutive quarterly increase, and it best second-quarter showing in a decade.
Revenue was up 1 per cent from a year ago to $25.4bn.
“Our team produced another strong quarter, serving a growing client base,” BofA’s chief executive Brian Moynihan said.
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The bank’s shares were up 2 per cent in pre-market trading.
The Republican National Convention is underway in Milwaukee, the largest city in the key swing state of Wisconsin. The four-day affair has put the city in an international spotlight just four years after Covid-19 spoiled the Democrats’ plans to hold their own convention in Milwaukee. But how much do you know about the host city? Take our quiz to find out.
Intel’s venture capital arm has emerged as one of the most active foreign investors in Chinese artificial intelligence and semiconductor start-ups, at a time the $147bn chipmaker receives billions of dollars from Washington to fund a technological arms race with Beijing.
Intel Capital owns stakes in 43 China-based technology start-ups, according to an FT analysis of its portfolio. Since the venture fund was launched in the early 1990s, it has invested in more than 120 Chinese groups, according to data provider Crunchbase.
The fund, which invests off the chipmaker’s balance sheet, has continued to back fledgling Chinese companies in the past year, even as many of its American peers exited the market under pressure from US authorities.
In February Intel Capital invested in a $20mn fundraising round by Shenzhen-based AI-Link, a 5G and cloud infrastructure platform, and last year led a $91mn round for Shanghai-headquartered North Ocean Photonics, a maker of micro-optics hardware.
Rising geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing have led to greater scrutiny of private investment flows between the two economic powers as they jostle for technological and military supremacy.
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In June, the Biden administration unveiled rules to curb US financing for Chinese technology that could have military purposes, such as AI, quantum computing and semiconductors. The regulations are expected to be finalised this year.
Intel Capital’s “investments were poster children that helped build consensus for the outbound restrictions”, according to one person familiar with the Biden administration’s thinking on the new rules.
Its current investments in China include around 16 AI start-ups and 15 in the semiconductor industry, as well as companies developing cloud services, electric vehicles, telecoms, virtual reality systems and batteries.
Intel Capital may be forced to divest from some companies once the US regulations take effect, though the US Treasury is examining whether to include some exemptions for some venture capital transactions.
However, the US group has slowed down its dealmaking in China over the past 18 months, according to data provider ITjuzi, completing just three deals since the start of 2023. Investment controls and a slowdown in the Chinese economy, as well as lasting repercussions from Beijing’s crackdown on tech companies, have hit start-up valuations and viability.
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A report by a US House China committee on the Chinese Communist party in February said that American venture capital firms had invested billions of dollars into companies that were fuelling China’s “military, surveillance state and Uyghur genocide”. This includes funnelling $1.9bn into AI companies and a further $1.2bn into semiconductors.
The report singled out five US venture firms — Sequoia, GGV, GSR Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and Walden International — but did not mention Intel Capital, despite the fund becoming one of the largest US investors in China after the departure of some of its rivals.
Intel Capital is “way more active” than Qualcomm’s venture arm in China, said the head of a large US fund with a long history of doing business in China. “Intel is active in everything.”
John Moolenaar, Republican head of the House China committee, said the case highlighted the need for tighter regulation.
“The Chinese Communist party remembers the old communist slogan that ‘the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them’,” said Moolenaar. “We need strong outbound capital restrictions to prevent American firms from investing in companies closely tied to the CCP’s armed forces.”
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Intel Capital declined to comment.
Sequoia Capital and GGV Capital, two of the largest US venture investors in China, spun out their Chinese businesses last year amid the mounting political pressure. Qualcomm, Walden and GSR also continue to invest in Chinese start-ups.
In March Intel received about $20bn in grants and loans from the US to fund an expansion of its semiconductor factories, the largest award from the government’s 2022 Chips and Science Act designed to enhance the domestic chip industry. The package will support more than $100bn in US investments from Intel for advanced chipmaking facilities, including building mega-plants in Ohio and Arizona.
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Nasdaq-listed Intel has a large China business, where it employs around 12,000 people and accounted for 27 per cent of global revenue in 2023.
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Chinese multinational Lenovo is one of the three largest customers of its chips, alongside Dell and HP, generating 11 per cent of global revenue. Last month, Intel’s China arm acquired a 3 per cent stake in Shenzhen telecoms equipment maker Luxshare.
Intel Capital’s China business is run by Tianlin Wang, a life-long Intel employee and head of the unit since 2017. It has six other investment directors in the country. Globally, Intel Capital has invested more than $20bn since the early 1990s and is led by Anthony Lin in San Francisco.
Intel Capital has participated in Chinese start-up deals worth a total $1.4bn since 2015, according to data from PitchBook. That figure relates to the total value of the deals rather than Intel Capital’s individual contribution, which the firm does not make public.
As early as 2014, Intel Capital announced it had invested $670mn in more than 110 Chinese technology companies, and in 2015 alone it gave $67mn to eight Chinese tech companies. Since then, Intel Capital has not publicly revealed the scale of its investments in China.
A report in February 2023 by the US Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a DC think-tank, into the national security risks associated with US investment in Chinese AI companies, found that Intel Capital participated in 11 deals for such companies between 2015 and 2021. A person close to Intel said there were only four AI deals during this time.
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In some cases, the US fund obtained a board seat, such as at Horizon Robotics, a chipmaker, and Eeasy Tech, which designs AI chips for facial recognition and that was also backed by the Zhuhai provincial government.
“Intel Capital’s investments in Chinese AI firms have led to the formation of strategic collaborations that could benefit the Chinese companies in a way that complements Chinese government strategies,” that report said.
In one case, Intel Capital helped fund the creation of a Chinese company that was later sanctioned by the US. The fund was one of the earliest investors in AI voice recognition group iFlytek, acquiring a 3 per cent stake in 2002 before selling the shareholding two years later. The company was one of six Chinese companies banned by the US in 2019 for their roles in alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
“The fear of missing out in the AI era has created a sense of urgency for Intel Capital,” said the head of a rival Chinese venture firm that has co-invested alongside them. “Intel is under such fierce competition in AI in the US, they can’t afford to be left behind, so they have to look around the world for where to deploy money into AI and China is one of the very few options.”
