And that was supposed to be the strongest case against Trump.

Well, it turns out it may have seemed stronger than it was because of prosecutorial misconduct.

However, if the case had been brought in DC or NY instead of Florida, it would be soldiering on without interruption.

Here’s how CNN initially handled the news. Nothing much to see here, right?

Judge Aileen Cannon has indefinitely postponed former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida, citing significant issues around classified evidence that would need to be worked out before the federal criminal case goes to a jury. https://t.co/xLTcCEDZd0

— CNN (@CNN) May 7, 2024

“Issues around classified evidence.” No actors; just evidence and “issues.” Big yawn, right?

Julie Kelly has more of the backstory. There are a host of reasons for Judge Cannon’s postponement, but these two are certainly among them:

On Friday night, in another shocking development, Special Counsel Jack Smith admitted materials contained in boxes seized during the August 2022 FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago are not in their original condition, raising serous questions as to how the case can proceed. …

We might next week see the unsealing and docketing of grand jury materials from Washington, D.C.; among the many corrupt facets of this case is the fact the DOJ conducted roughly 99 percent of the investigation in Washington rather than the proper jurisdiction of southern Florida. The reason why is obvious: the ex-chief judge of the D.C. District Court, Obama appointee and Trump hater Beryl Howell, rubber stamped every DOJ request including an egregious request to pierce attorney-client privilege between Donald Trump and his lawyer, Evan Corcoran.

Howell cited the “crime fraud exception” before forcing Corcoran to produce all of this records to Smith. Those records represent the basis for the obstruction counts against Trump and long-time personal aide Waltine Nauta in Smith’s 40-count indictment. Cannon recently expressed frustration during a court hearing last month about the fact grand jury files related to the case remain in Washington—some under seal.

We also have this from Kelly:

A few weeks after the armed FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, the Department of Justice released a stunning photograph depicting alleged contraband seized from Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate that day; the image showed colored sheets representing scary classification levels attached to files purportedly discovered in Trump’s private office. …

… the crime scene pic immediately went viral—just as Attorney General Merrick Garland, who authorized the unprecedented raid, intended. …

… An ex-CIA officer told ABC News the cover sheets indicated the highest level of secrecy, which in the wrong hands could have resulted in murder. …

New court filings in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s espionage and obstruction case against Trump and two co-defendants conclusively demonstrate that the government used the cover sheets to deceive the public as well as the court. The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case. …

In what must be considered not only an act of doctoring evidence but willfully misleading the American people into believing the former president is a criminal and threat to national security, agents involved in the raid attached the cover sheets to at least seven files to stage the photo.

Classified cover sheets were not “recovered” in the container, contrary to Bratt’s declaration to the court. In fact, after being busted recently by defense attorneys for mishandling evidence in the case, Bratt had to fess up about how the cover sheets actually ended up on the documents. …

But now defense attorneys claim, and the special counsel concedes, that some placeholders do not match the relevant document. …

In other words, in their zeal to stage a phony photo using official classified cover sheets, FBI agents might have failed to accurately match the placeholder sheet with the appropriate document. This is a potentially case-blowing mistake, particularly if the document in question is one of the 34 records that represents the basis of espionage charges against Trump. …

After the boxes were transported from Florida to the hopelessly corrupt Washington FBI field office (another scandalous aspect of the case since the investigation should have been conducted in southern Florida not in another jurisdiction), a private company took scans of the inside of the boxes. But according to the defense team, the current condition of the boxes does not match the scans taken in August 2022.

As for the MSM, here’s how the Guardian and many other MSM sources have been covering the story: not a word about the possible misconduct; just the delay, and a strong insinuation that Judge Cannon is biased towards Trump. Here’s Politico, which covered it much the same way: very ho-hum, and no details of the new issues except to say there has been a “tangle of pretrial conflicts between special counsel Jack Smith and Trump’s attorneys.” Well, gee; sounds like a courtroom. PBS used a similar approach. Then I got tired of looking; I’m going to assume it would be hard to find an MSM outlet covering the developments properly.

NOTE: Jonathan Turley defends Judge Cannon here.