According to a New York Times report, when Judge Eileen Cannon was assigned to the Mar-a-Lago Papers case against former President Trump last year, two other judges urged her to take over the case.
The plea came after Cannon first handled President Trump’s challenge to a search warrant at his home, and his appointment as a special master was censured by a higher court and ordered to be vacated.
according toTimesThe case was randomly assigned to Cannon after prosecutors decided to formally indict Trump last June, but both judges suggested he take over the case.
Two sources indicated they had heard about the arguments directly from the judge, but both declined to reveal the judge’s name.
The judge, who was not named, suggested it would be better for Cannon to have the case heard in a Miami courtroom rather than one in Fort Pierce, two hours north.
There was already a classified intelligence facility at the Miami courthouse, but the government then had to build one in Fort Pierce.
Chief Judge Cecilia Altonaga, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush and oversees judges in the Southern District of Florida, also reportedly tried to persuade Cannon to drop the case, telling her it would look bad to continue with it given her response to Trump’s challenge to the warrant.
The court did not respond to a request for comment.
Judge Cannon immediately appointed a special assistant to the case and withheld the documents from prosecutors until the assistant could review them and make a recommendation.
That included the novel argument of whether any of the documents should be withheld under executive privilege.
When the government appealed the case to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the court sided with the prosecutors but analyzed Cannon’s choice in harsh terms.
“I don’t know why. [Trump] “He had a personal interest or need for any of the 100 classified documents,” the appeals court wrote.
The court then added that “the district court abused its discretion in making the appointment.”
Cannon’s oversight of the case has alarmed legal experts on both sides of the aisle.
She has handled many issues normally left to magistrate judges, including the appointment of special masters.
She has also been moving the case at a slow pace, refusing to set a trial date until she has processed numerous pretrial motions, including a hearing scheduled for Friday challenging the appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith.
Cannon’s indefinite postponement of the case came after lawyers for both Trump and the government indicated they wanted a trial to begin by the summer.
She also devoted ample time to issues that many justices would likely decide more quickly, including scheduling hearings on a series of efforts by Trump to dismiss the lawsuit rather than rule on the documents filed.
In one of the few pretrial issues Cannon ruled on, she largely sided with the prosecution in a ruling critical of Smith’s team and narrowed the scope of the case by removing a paragraph from the indictment.
Her slow response to the case all but ensures that Trump will be tried before the election and, if he wins, could instruct the Justice Department to drop the charges.
