MSNBC host says Donald Trump’s “Mar-a-Lago” judge Aileen Cannon is now on the GOP Supreme Court shortlist

Lawrence O’Donnell said Tuesday that Judge Aileen Cannon’s order granting Donald Trump’s request for confiscated documents from Mar-a-Lago was an unofficial bid for the next Supreme Court vacancy under a Republican president.

Cannon on Monday agreed with the argument by Trump’s attorneys that a special foreman should be appointed to sift through the documents and search for those protected by attorney-client privilege — although the Justice Department said late last month it had already done so .

“Well, thanks to Donald Trump and the Republican Party adopting Trumpian methods, tonight we know the name of the next Republican nominee for the United States Supreme Court,” O’Donnell said during the 10 p.m. opening of his show. Cannon, he said, “written publicly in a 24-page statement yesterday to run for the Supreme Court Justice.”

Cannon’s arrangement has been criticized by legal experts, with O’Donnell adding that it “has no connective tissue to pre-existing jurisprudence in America”. Instead, he said Cannon “just made it up.”

Cannon, a Trump agent, also wrote that having a third party involved would help protect Trump from “reputational damage.” O’Donnell specifically aimed for this part.

“One of the most absurd ideas in their order to give Donald Trump anything he asked for is the idea that any future indictment against Donald Trump based on this evidence would result in reputational damage,” he said. “The only way Donald Trump could suffer reputational damage is if the evidence contained child pornography, which certainly isn’t the case. You cannot suffer reputation damage if you have already destroyed your reputation.”

The MSNBC host then referenced, among other things, Trump’s hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, his 2005 comment about women letting him “grab their pussy,” and the $25 million settlement Dollars after Trump University students sued. allege fraud.

“Sometimes a court opinion is about the law and the Constitution and not about the drafter of the report,” O’Donnell said, citing the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision directing President Richard Nixon to turn over material to the special attorney who is investigating him.

That’s not the case with Cannon’s command, he continued, likening it to a plot point in the 1972 film The Godfather.

“The day came when Donald Trump needed the service of Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon. And she made it. That’s the story.”