U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon is continuously straying from legal principle in her handling of Donald Trump's classified documents case after she rebuked special counsel Jack Smith for alerting her to the former president's motion to delay his Washington, D.C. federal case, legal experts argued. That order, coupled with her signal last week that she may further delay the trial in line with the defense's request, has raised alarms for former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, who described Cannon's criticism of prosecutors as "off base."
"Many people have a sense Judge Cannon has her thumb on the scale for Trump," Vance said on X, formerly Twitter. "Perhaps Judge Cannon needs to remember what this case is about: alleged crimes regarding the treatment of highly classified documents by a former president — allegations that are backed up by evidence collected during execution of a court-ordered search warrant," Vance wrote in her newsletter. "Instead it seems to have devolved into an inexplicable grudge match with the Special Counsel's office on her part."
"Biased or not, Cannon simply doesn’t have game; and she masks it with prickly remonstrations of the government," former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman tweeted. "She needs to go back to judges’ school, except there isn’t such a place. (yes, I know about the little orientation course, but that’s not what I mean.)" Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor, told Newsweek that it's hard to understand Cannon's thought process. "Does she believe that the case is too complicated to try as soon as May, even though the lawyers have had months to prepare and will have six more months before May? That's not credible," he said, noting that Trump's D.C. case, though "more complicated," is proceeding swiftly.
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