Judge Aileen Cannon has officially been on the documents case for a year, and legal experts are saying that they are shocked she still has a job. These experts have been so repulsed by the behavior of Judge Cannon that they now believe she’s no longer fit to serve on the bench at all. And the rulings she issued last week are no exception, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Judge Aileen Cannon has now been on Donald Trump’s classified documents case for a full year. She was of course, randomly selected for this case on June 10th, 2023. So here we are a year later and we’ve basically made no progress whatsoever. In fact, if anything, Cannon continually sets the case back and with a series of rulings last week, one of which will allow for outside groups to come in and make arguments for 30 minutes on Trump’s behalf, which is absolutely unheard of, legal experts are now sounding the alarm about the fact that Judge Cannon shouldn’t even have a job anymore. Let me say that again. They’re not just saying, some of these folks, they’re not just saying that she shouldn’t be on the Trump case. They’re saying she shouldn’t even be on the bench due to her behavior with this particular trial.
Let’s start with a modest critique. This one is from MSNBC legal analyst, Lisa Rubin, who says, some will say Cannon has shown clear bias. I won’t. Weird slights of scheduling, delay, and even legally erroneous rulings don’t prove bias, but her management of her docket and micromanagement of these motions are baffling at best and highly problematic at worst. It gets a little more intense from there. Jeffrey Toobin, CNN legal analyst said this, this whole way she has conducted this case is wildly, totally, crazily unusual. Just another illustration that she’s trying to kill this prosecution. That’s the only conclusion you can draw. No other judge in the federal system that I’m aware of would treat these issues anything like what she’s trying to do.
Former federal prosecutor, Mary McCord, told MSNBC that she has never seen a district judge allow outside parties to come in and make arguments on the defendant’s behalf. She said that is an extraordinary amount of argument time on a single issue. Most oral arguments aren’t even 30 minutes per side or party. Then you have former Miami-Dade County Court Judge Jeff Swartz, who said that it’s clear the judge is trying to delay the case as long as she possibly can and, quote, if she is that ignorant of how to handle these matters, then she doesn’t belong on the bench. If she’s doing it because she’s lazy, then she doesn’t belong on the bench. If she’s doing it just to delay, then she doesn’t belong on the bench. That is also, again, a former judge telling us, doesn’t matter why she’s doing it, all the reasons point to she shouldn’t be on the bench.
Then you have Ty Cobb, one of Donald Trump’s former lawyers who said this, Judge Cannon is kicking the can down the road as long as she can and delaying both the trial, which is clearly her purpose, and when I say purpose, it is purposeful now. It’s not mere ineptitude. I don’t find anything she does surprising at this stage in the game as long as it favors the former president. In other words, all these legal experts out there plus many, many more, they’re all basically saying the same thing. We don’t know why she’s doing it. Maybe it’s bias. Maybe she’s inept. Maybe she’s dumb. Maybe she’s not good at her job. Maybe she’s lazy. But it doesn’t matter what the reason is, all of this behavior is completely and totally unacceptable, which is why I maintain that if the Democrats take back the House and retain the Senate this year, their first order of business needs to be impeaching and removing Judge Aileen Cannon from the federal bench.
