The judge overseeing Donald Trump's classified documents case has been criticized by legal experts for her "baffling" rescheduling of a number of hearings in the already delayed trial.
Judge Aileen Cannon announced on Wednesday that there will be a shuffle of the timeline as she intends to rule on a number of legal arguments connected to the case. Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020, has already indefinitely postponed the start of the federal trial pending the outcome of several appeals and motions.
From June 21, Cannon will hold hearings on Trump's arguments that Special Counsel Jack Smith, the lead prosecutor in the case, was unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland as it was not first approved by the Senate.
Cannon added a hearing on the gag order request from the Department of Justice to prevent Trump from making potentially inflammatory remarks about law enforcement ahead of the trial. There will also be another hearing on Trump's arguments to suppress some evidence obtained following the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 on the grounds of Trump's attorney-client privilege.
The Florida judge said that in the "light of the scheduling adjustments," a three-day hearing originally set between June 24-26 will now be canceled and rearranged to take place on a later date. The hearing related to Trump's legal team's request to obtain communications between Smith's office and the National Archives and other national security agencies, reported The New York Times.
Lisa Rubin, lawyer and legal analyst for MSNBC, hit out at Cannon for moving through Trump's motions to dismiss in a "slothful pace and in a mystifying" order.
"Although she is not required to have oral argument on any of them, she has, by my count, resolved (and grudgingly denied) only two, scheduled argument late this month on two more, and stalled on three others, even potentially allowing Trump to compel evidence relevant to one," Rubin posted on X, formerly Twitter.
"Some will say Cannon has shown clear bias. I won't. Weird sleights of scheduling, delay, & 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."
Cannon's office has been contacted for comment via email.
Elsewhere, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg hit out at Cannon's "highly unusual" decision to allow outside parties unconnected to the classified documents to offer arguments on whether Smith's appointment was unlawful at the hearings from June 21.
"Especially for the claim that the special counsel is unconstitutional," Aronberg previously told Newsweek. "Most other judges would have dismissed these claims already."
Former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin also criticized the decision and how Cannon has handled the case overall.
"This whole way she has conducted this case is wildly, totally, crazily unusual," Toobin told CNN's AC360 on Wednesday.
"And the allowing of outsiders to participate in a day-and-a-half hearing that most judges would decide on briefs or maybe give 10 minutes aside to argue is just another illustration that she is trying to kill this prosecution. That's the only conclusion you can draw."
When Garland announced the appointment of Smith in November 2022 as special counsel, he cited his "authority" as attorney general to do so.
The Justice Department allows the attorney general to appoint a special counsel under "extraordinary circ*mstances." When announcing Smith as special counsel, Garland cited both Trump and Biden intending to run for president as a reason for doing so.
The June 24 hearing on the partial gag order request from Smith arrived after Trump falsely asserted that a standard wording on the Mar-a-Lago search warrant giving agents permission to use "deadly force" if necessary meant President Joe Biden was authorizing the FBI to assassinate Trump.
Elsewhere, former Miami-Dade County Judge Jeff Schwartz suggested Cannon's rescheduling of the hearings is another sign she is "doing the best" to delay the start of the trial "as long as she possibly can."
"I can come up with no other reason than she is purposely avoiding ruling on certain matters," Schwartz told CNN.
"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, doing it just to delay then she doesn't belong on the bench," Schwartz added.
Cannon has long faced criticism for her rulings which appear to have benefited the former president in the federal trial, including delaying the start of the trial until potentially next year.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 charges over allegations he illegally retained classified materials after he left office in January 2021, then obstructed the federal attempt to retrieve them.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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