As U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon entertains another far-fetched argument from Trump’s defense team in the classified documents prosecution, a recent report sheds considerable light on her vexing oversight of the case.
When Cannon was assigned to the case by lottery, the New York Times reported last week, two of her fellow judges urged the Trump appointee to transfer the case . Those calls were extraordinary. New judges like Cannon might seek out the advice of colleagues on various questions, potentially including whether to take on such a difficult case early in their tenure.
But for not one but two other sitting judges to urge a colleague to give up an assignment demonstrates severe concern within the Southern District of Florida. It’s not hard to understand why. Cannon’s assignment came six months after she spectacularly bungled a Trump lawsuit protesting the search for and seizure of the documents that would form the basis of the federal charges.
Cannon’s mischief-making in the civil case included her appointment of a special master to sift through the seized documents based on Trump’s claim of executive privilege. That shackled the Justice Department in an unprecedented fashion and drew criticism from legal experts of all ideological stripes. It took two decisions excoriating Cannon by the conservative 11th Circuit U.
S. Court of Appeals to shut down her misadventure. Those two strikes against the judge arguably put her oversight of the case at real risk if s.
