Good review, rightly agnostic on Cannon's status as fool or knave. Still, I think she's in the tank for Trump and will end the case against him in the way least likely to be appealable.

The defendant's lawyers will move to exclude any evidence obtained from Trump's lawyers. She will hold all of Trump's communications with his lawyers to be privileged, and she will declare all of the evidence in the case tainted by the "roadmap" provided by the lawyers. I have been out of law school too long to say whether that leads to "dismissal" before jeopardy attaches or "acquittal" thereafter.

If Cannon is the judge, maybe Trump waives a jury trial and she just acquits him after hearing all the evidence. She doesn't have to rule out the lawyer testimony to "find" that it proves nothing.

FWIW, I am sympathetic to the Republicans' "No harm no foul" approach to presidential law-breaking. I'm not saying that their position is principled; it is not. But I do believe it is correct.

We, the people, elected this asshole, and we, the people, the nominal plaintiffs in Federal criminal actions, need to own our mistake. We put Trump in the position to do what he did, and now we must live with it, at least where no harm has been done. So, yes, the President must be "above" some laws, and we must, therefore, not be so petulant and cavalier about who we put in the office.

My view is based on all of the problems attendant to this prosecution, including those arising from the fact that judges are appointed by presidents, which means that all of their rulings will be seen as political, undermining confidence in our judiciary. Absent actual harm to the country, I just don't think the juice is worth the squeeze.