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Legal experts are calling for Florida Judge Aileen Cannon to recuse herself from Donald Trump's classified documents case over concerns about her impartiality regarding the former president.
Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, has been assigned to oversee proceedings in the case in which the former president has been charged with 37 federal offenses over allegations that he illegally retained secret and sensitive materials after he left office, and then obstructed a federal attempt to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The judge made headlines last year after making a number of rulings in favor of Trump which slowed down the classified documents case.
This includes appointing a special master to review the thousands of seized materials, which the Department of Justice (DOJ) did not deem necessary, and then choosing Raymond Dearie for the role, who was one of two picks put forward by Trump's counsel.
The move temporarily barred prosecutors from examining the top-secret materials retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, and could not be used as evidence in the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit later ruled in favor of the DOJ on appeal, stating that Cannon had "improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction," and lifted the block imposed by the judge.
In an opinion piece for Slate, a trio of legal experts—Norm Eisen, attorney and former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic; Richard W. Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer, and Fred Wertheimer, attorney and president of Democracy 21—said Cannon should recuse herself from the classified documents proceedings, or the DOJ should launch proceedings to have her recused.
"Several features of this case make it clear that members of the public will harbor serious concerns about the fairness of the proceedings and Judge Cannon's impartiality, well beyond the objective observer standard," the opinion piece states.
"Ultimately, Judge Cannon should do the ethical thing and recuse herself. If she chooses not to, DOJ should be watchful for the first opportunity to seek reassignment by the 11th Circuit," it adds. "A failure to recuse or reassign could well do great damage to the core American principle that no one—not even a former president—is above the law."
As well as the "deeply erroneous step" Cannon made by preventing federal prosecutors from using classified documents in their case, Eisen, Painter and Wertheimer said that Cannon has previously made statements suggesting Trump is entitled to "differential treatment than any other criminal defendant."
"To be clear, our concern is not that Judge Cannon is a Trump appointee. The conflict of interest is that she has already issued unusual and profoundly wrong decisions favoring the defendant in this case that have been severely criticized and overturned, again by conservative or Trump-appointed judges," they said.
Elsewhere, former federal prosecutor and host of YouTube's Justice Matters, Glenn Kirschner, also suggested that Cannon should be recused from the case one way or another so the public can have "faith and trust and confidence" in the judicial princess involving the former president.
"Every time she makes a call in favor of Donald Trump during the course of this trial, people could fairly observe 'there she goes again, with her improper pro-Trump interventions.' If she makes rulings against Donald Trump, people may say 'yeah, well, that's because she's now trying to overcompensate and make up for being criticized by the appellate court,'" Kirschner said.
"It's a no-win situation. No win for the judge, no win for the perception of the fairness and the legitimacy of a trial and it's no win for the outcome of the result being viewed as legitimate," he added.
Cannon also previously rejected a request from Dearie that Trump's legal team should formally state if the list of items the FBI say they removed from Mar-a-Lago in August is inaccurate.
The ruling meant the former president could not testify under oath that he believes federal agents may have "planted" evidence against him, which he originally suggested following the August 2022 raid, or state which documents Trump had apparently declassified.
Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University, previously called on Cannon to recuse herself from the case due to her history of "pro-Trump interventions."
"For her to re-emerge as the judge presiding over this historic trial would cast a long shadow over a proceeding that should be, and should be seen to be, entirely unbiased and legally sound," Tribe told Newsweek.
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Justice for comment.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more