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Turns out Loose Cannon has no gunpowder. (11th Cir. says she had no jurisdiction to hear Trump’s case.)

What a colossal waste of time https://t.co/u1HqixqE5F

— @AshaRangappa@masthead.social (@AshaRangappa_) December 1, 2022

I’m pretty sure I said this back when the case was filed. It doesn’t matter, but I’ve been waiting for a court to realize Cannon never had jurisdiction. (Lack of jurisdiction means the court doesn’t have, and never had, any authority over the parties or the issues raised in the case.) So everything is unzipped, everybody return to square one. Sort of like an annulment: it’s as if the case never happened.

That’s not the slap down. This, at least in part, is:

This Eleventh Circuit ruling is just dripping with venom for how stupid Judge Cannon’s ruling was and it’s beautiful pic.twitter.com/dxpVmJW0ia

— Popehat (@Popehat) December 1, 2022

"Our usual test" is appellate judge speak for: “Where did you go to law school?”

So is this:

Love the tl;dr pic.twitter.com/0SqTF5sHbk

— Keith 🦀🫡 (@mosheroperandi) December 1, 2022

Here, let them spell it out for you:

Excellent opinion from the 11th Circuit, ordering Judge Cannon to dismiss the case Trump brought because she never had the power to get involved in the first place. Excerpts below.https://t.co/dxFipKZkpR pic.twitter.com/NFNfzYYDEl

— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) December 1, 2022

This is a good summary:

It's hard to know where to begin with how lacerating the 11th Circuit's slapdown of Trump's Mar-a-Lago case is—whether it's calling his arguments a "sideshow" or indirectly calling Cannon's ruling "radical."

The article hashes it out. Some more thoughts: https://t.co/geSxXUOdM7

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) December 1, 2022

The law is clear. 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. Either approach would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations. Accordingly, we agree with the government that the district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction, and that dismissal of the entire proceeding is required. 

The district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction in this case. For that reason, we VACATE the September 5 order on appeal and REMAND with instructions for the district court to DISMISS the underlying civil action.

Everything in that quote before “Accordingly” is pretty much stating: “This is so basic we really shouldn’t have to explain it to a sitting federal judge.” Although maybe I should render that in all caps to make the meaning plain.

I mean, all the panel left out was a facepalm GIF. 🤦