Legal experts are continuing to put pressure on Court Judge Aileen Cannon to recuse herself from former President Donald Trump’s trial on charges relating to his handling of classified documents.
Cannon has been drawing criticism because she is a Trump appointee. She made controversial rulings in Trump’s favour during the investigation into his possession of classified government documents at his home in and social club in Palm Beach.
Cannon was nominated in 2020 by Trump to the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Before that, she was a federal prosecutor in the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida.
Calls for Aileen to recuse
Three well-known lawyers who worked with George Bush, and Barack Obama and one of them who is president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan good government advocacy organisation, wrote an article in Slate magazine saying Judge Aileen must recuse herself. The trio are Richard Painter, Norman Eisen and Fred Wertheimer.
“Judge Cannon’s prior fundamentally erroneous approach casts a shadow over the proceedings. Because her earlier handling of this case went well outside the judicial norm and was roundly criticized by the Court of Appeals, reasonable observers of this case could question her impartiality.”
Federal prosecutors and Trump’s own former attorney general William Barr has said that Cannon’s handling of the lawsuit was frivolous.
Danger of bias
An article in the Washington Post states, “Trial judges can affect the timing and shape of cases in many ways. They can rule on motions to dismiss counts or the entire indictment, decide what evidence is admitted or excluded, and address a host of other critical questions.”
Professor Emeritus at NYU Law Stephen Gillers says, a judge should recuse herself if her impartiality might be questioned.
“She was partial to Trump as a former President, which should not have an influence on the way this trial is conducted. I’m concerned that the partiality she expressed in her decisions last year creates a reasonable perception in the mind of a fair minded person that she is not impartial, which is the test.”
Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe told Newsweek, “For her to re-emerge as the judge presiding over this historic trial would cast a long shadow over a proceeding that should be, and should be seen to be, entirely unbiased and legally sound.”
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