U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is being accused of bungling the criminal classified case and letting it spiral out of control in favor of former President Donald Trump's slow-walk to election strategy, according to some legal scholars.
The delay tactics in the case where the 45th president and Republican presumptive nominee, stands accused of hoarding several White House banker boxes filled with national secrets at his Mar-a-Lago club has dragged on to the point where some have lost faith in Cannon's ability.
She's "lost control of the trial," David Schultz, a Hamline University legal studies and political science professor, told Salon.
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He believes so far Cannon has been ruling from the bench like a novice.
"The fact that she's [held] a bunch of hearings, she doesn't have clear orders, she's all over the map — I think it's a rookie problem, or relative rookie problem, that she just does not have control over the courtroom, and Trump's taking advantage of it," he said.
Indeed, the judge who Trump appointed in 2020 hasn't set a firm trial date despite holding two hours-long hearings with the defense and prosecutors earlier this month.
Meantime, a wave of motions to dismiss the case are still pending, spats over classified evidence have been snailing along for months, and Trump's attorneys urging for the unmasking of the names of government witnesses all appear to be languishing.
David Aaron, a former Justice Department national security prosecutor told The Associated Press: “This does seem to be moving more slowly and less sequentially than other cases that I have seen concerning classified information."
Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team who are prosecuting the case have been pushing to get the case on calendar citing a public interest in securing a verdict and teased overwhelming evidence — including surveillance video, lawyer’s notes and testimony from associates in his orbit to prove Trump's culpability ahead of the 2024 election.
“This case should be over already,” Jeffrey Swartz, a professor at Cooley Law School and former judge in Florida, told The AP. “There was nothing in this case that complex.”
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani was even more blunt about the judge.
"Judge Cannon is a bad judge and has made bad rulings and has favored Trump at every possible turn, number one," she told Salon.
She added: "Every frivolous argument that Trump has raised, [Cannon has] entertained, going back to the search warrants that were executed at Mar-a-Lago."
Rahmani was referring to Cannon's questionable appointment of an independent expert to review documents seized by FBI agents during their recovery from Mar-a-Lago.
An appeals court overruled Cannon, noting she lacked the authority to appoint the expert.
