The US district judge overseeing Donald Trump’s documents case may have to recuse herself over pre-trial rulings that were favorable to the GOP frontrunner for this year’s presidential election, say legal experts.
Investigative Phase Rulings
Concerns about bias towards the defendant by Judge Aileen Cannon were raised among legal observers and Special Counsel Jack Smith when she made rulings during the case’s investigative stage of the trial that were beneficial to Trump.
‘Wrong Judge’ for the Case
Legal experts Norm Eisen and Joshua Kolb say, in an opinion piece for the online magazine Slate, that Cannon should not be handling the indictment, one of four Trump is fighting.
‘Worst of the Jurists’
They write: “Unfortunately, the judge handling the case, Aileen Cannon – a last-minute appointment rushed through in the waning days of the Trump administration – has proved herself to be by far the worst of the jurists overseeing these momentous cases.”
Documents Indictment
The former President, 77, is accused by Smith of illegally removing classified government documents from the White House at the end of his term and storing them in his Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida. He is also accused of refusing to hand back the documents when requested, culminating in raids by FBI agents on Mar-a-Lago in which photographs were taken of dozens of boxes of files piled up in several rooms of the property, including a bathroom and ballroom.
‘Brutal Reversals’
Eisen and Kolb say that Cannon’s “decisions during the investigative phase of the case strayed wildly from precedent, leading to brutal reversals by the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.”
‘Remove Her from the Case’
They write: “Now Smith appears to be preparing to ask that body to overturn at least one and possibly two of her decisions. In our view, while he is there on those other issues, he should also petition them to remove her from the case.”
Cannon’s ‘Clear Error’
They say that “at Trump’s behest, Cannon has decided to unseal the identities of two dozen potential witnesses, along with sensitive information they provided to the government. The ‘clear error’ Smith identifies is striking: He alleges that Cannon applied the wrong legal standard in making this decision, requiring him to make a far more stringent showing than should be needed to protect these names.”
‘Unreasonable Hurdles’
The legal experts add that “[in] his motion for reconsideration, Smith shows that the case law – including the very cases Cannon herself cited in her order – does not establish the unreasonable hurdles she wants him to clear.”
Trial Dates
Trump’s legal team has been attempting to move the trial dates for his four indictments beyond the November 5 presidential election, arguing that court appearances would impede his campaigning. But the documents case is slated to be heard sometime in May while a hush money indictment that alleges Trump falsified accounting to cover up an affair will go to trial on March 25.
Election-Subversion Case
Two other indictments, in Georgia and at federal level, say Trump tried to overturn the result of the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden and block the peaceful transfer of power. A trial date for the federal case has been postponed while prosecutors in the Georgia indictment have proposed August 5 to hear that case.
‘Special Treatment’ for Trump
Eisen and Kolb also said about Trump’s documents case that, “[s]Sartlingly, throughout those proceedings, [Judge Cannon] repeatedly expressed her view that Trump deserves special treatment because of his status as a former president.”
‘Unprecedented Exception’
They continue: “She ruled that ‘as a function of Plaintiff’s former position as President of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own.’ The 11th Circuit forcefully rejected her position as ‘carv[ing] out an unprecedented exception in our law for former presidents.'”
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