Aileen Cannon, appointed by Donald Trump, must now judge him. The judge chosen by lot to oversee the federal trial of the former president will have a major impact on the trial, which isn’t to everyone’s taste.
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“Condemning someone who gave you your job would be hard for anyone,” said Wendy Schiller, a public policy professor at Brown University.
And when the accused keeps posing as a victim of “persecution,” “that signals to the judge that he’s being monitored,” the expert added to AFP.
Will Aileen Cannon be able to withstand this pressure? Those who want Donald Trump to be convicted for his careless handling of White House secrets doubt it.
First, because she has little experience as a judge.
The Republican billionaire gave her a lifetime job as a federal judge shortly before her loss in the November 2020 presidential election. She was only 38 at the time, including three years of law practice experience and seven years in the offices of a Florida federal attorney.
According to Politico, she has overseen only four criminal cases during her tenure, which have never lasted longer than three days.
Then because she’s “a very conservative judge,” notes Thomas Holbrook, a professor of political science in Wisconsin.
Notably, the daughter of a Cuban refugee, she is a member of the Federalist Society, a very influential organization in the legal community, which has a voice among elected Republicans and advocates a literal interpretation of the Constitution.
But above all because she has already paid great deference to Donald Trump.
After the FBI raided his luxury club, Mar-a-Lago, in August 2022, the 70-year-old took legal action to prevent prosecutors from using the confiscated documents. Judge Cannon had already taken over the case and agreed in part, citing “the exceptional circumstances” surrounding “his previous position as President of the United States.”
She was then disavowed by three judges at her court in an unusually critical tone: “While it is indeed exceptional to have a search warrant for the home of an ex-president, this must in no way prejudice our legal analysis,” they wrote.
“Traitor”
None of this would matter if the judge had only a ceremonial role, but that is far from the case.
“Even in routine cases, judges have an important and sometimes decisive influence on the process,” notes Daniel Richman, professor of law at Columbia University.
In particular, Aileen Cannon will decide which physical items may be presented to the judges. In that file, she may be tempted to exclude scathing notes spontaneously made by Donald Trump’s attorney in the name of professional secrecy.
She will also set the timeline for the preliminary hearings and trial, which could send him well past the November 2024 presidential election in which Donald Trump is running. According to Daniel Richman, “Even a seasoned judge would have a hard time persuading him to run.”
Finally, she will oversee jury selection, which must reach a unanimous verdict.
For all these reasons, several voices urged him to retire. “His impartiality can be questioned,” former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who investigated allegations of collusion between Donald Trump and Moscow in 2016, told MSNBC.
For the time being, the judge seems to want to keep the file, in which she has already completed some formalities.
However she behaves, she ends up being vilified, notes Thomas Holbrook.
“Once she makes a decision against the former president, it doesn’t matter that he nominated her, and she’s viewed as a traitor by Republican supporters,” he said. “Conversely, if she votes for Trump, it will fuel the idea that the justice system is corrupt.”