Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon could be on her last days in terms of presiding over the Trump classified documents case.
A watchdog group has just filed a complaint against her, hoping to have her removed from the bench for this case.
Sadly, this could go much deeper, as there is a real chance that Cannon could lose her robe.
Get Her Out
Cannon has clearly been receptive to Trump’s legal motions, but when she dismissed the case saying that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith was illegal, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) had enough.
To be completely honest, they have a case.
The issue of an Attorney General appointing a special counsel was litigated extensively decades ago, resulting in Title 28 – Judicial Administration, Chapter VI, Part 600, which outlines the authority of the Attorney General to appoint a special counsel.
There are decades of precedent to back this up, and yes, I do realize that precedents can be turned over, but doing so in this case presents some rather significant legal challenges.
For instance, the findings of every special counsel appointed since the 1970s would be invalidated, and there is no way the Supreme Court would allow that.
To that point, CREW argued, “Even before she dismissed this case on novel and insupportable grounds that ignored both statutory authority and Supreme Court precedent, Judge Cannon’s other extraordinary rulings and sluggish administration of the case had provoked well-founded concerns that she might be biased against the Government’s case and unable to manage that case impartially.”
Jack Smith even referred to the precedent in defending his position, stating that Judge Cannon had “deviated from binding Supreme Court precedent, misconstrued the statutes that authorized the Special Counsel’s appointment, and took inadequate account of the longstanding history of Attorney General appointments of special counsels.”
I have stated this before, but I think Cannon has now risked her seat on the bench with this decision.
I really don’t think her rulings were outrageous to this point, and while they could be argued against, they were nothing compared to her dismissing this case.
She was just wrong, and it will be perceived as loyalty to Trump, and we all know how that sits with the powers that be in the judiciary today.
This will be a short-lived victory for Trump. Cannon may have been trying to help Trump, but by tossing this case, she has likely ended her career on the bench.
