Former CIA Director Wants Judge Cannon Removed from DOJ Case (1)

Attorneys for former CIA Director John Brennan asked Miami’s chief federal judge to block the Justice Department from potentially prosecuting their client before Donald Trump-favored federal judge Aileen Cannon.

In a highly unusual public letter, the defense lawyers confirmed Brennan is the target of South Florida prosecutors’ grand jury investigation related to Russia’s 2016 election interference and sought to remove Cannon from presiding over any resulting prosecution.

“We are seeking assurance that any litigation arising out of this grand jury proceeding will be heard by a judge who is selected by the court’s neutral and impartial processes, not by the prosecution’s self-interested maneuvering contrary to the interests of justice,” Brennan’s attorneys wrote in a letter they provided to Bloomberg Law. The letter was earlier reported on by The New York Times.

They accused South Florida US Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones of manipulation by forum-shopping the case to a Fort Pierce, Fla., division with only one sitting trial court judge, Cannon. Based on her “numerous past decisions,” prosecutors could reasonably believe Cannon would provide an “accommodating courtroom for an investigation and possible prosecution of President Trump’s perceived political adversaries,” wrote Brennan’s lawyers, led by former senior DOJ and Department of Homeland Security official Kenneth Wainstein.

Cannon has sided with Trump and earned his praise in closely watched cases, including litigation involving his handling of classified documents.

Spokespeople for both Reding Quiñones and the Southern District of Florida federal judiciary declined to comment.

In addition to seeking Cannon’s recusal, Brennan’s legal team requested that Chief Judge Cecilia Altonaga forbid Reding Quiñones from further involvement in the matter unless he were to promise not to pursue it in Cannon’s courthouse.

The letter cited Bloomberg Law’s reporting of Reding Quiñones’ efforts to staff up a team to prosecute other former government officials involved in past cases against Trump, leading to the resignation of two assistant US attorneys.

“We recognize that it is exceptional for the target of an investigation to make such a request,” the lawyers concluded. “However, we believe this is the exceptional case where such judicial supervision is needed for a number of important reasons,” including “to protect Judge Cannon from the litigation around the recusal motion that will inevitably be filed if and when she assumes any judicial role over the matter.”

The probe into Brennan is part of a broader DOJ examination into claims about the Russian collusion “hoax” from Trump’s base that prior investigations have dismissed as unfounded. The Miami US attorney’s office is also expected to expand its scrutiny into more recent Special Counsel’s Office indictments of Trump for alleged unlawful retention of classified documents and obstructing the 2020 election.

Since his arrival last August, Reding Quiñones has promised to “restore impartial justice,” traveled frequently to Washington, and taken other steps that his employees have interpreted as responsive to Trump’s allegations of a weaponized DOJ under former President Joe Biden.

Prosecutors for Reding Quinones who’ve been investigating Brennan have been “vague” when “asked by this counsel and counsel for other subpoena recipients to identify the specific federal crime or crimes being investigated” or how they planned to establish venue in South Florida for conduct in the DC area, said Wainstein and his Mayer Brown co-counsel Natasha Harnwell-Davis in their letter.