Aileen Cannon
Aileen Mercedes Cannon is a Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Florida best known for her role presiding over the federal case charging Donald Trump with crimes for his handling of classified documents relating to America’s national security. On July 15, 2024, Cannon dismissed all charges against Trump, who had previously praised her.
She ruled that Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, even though the same argument has been rejected by several courts. She did so after her unusual order to allow arguments from groups not party to the case over whether the appointment of a special counsel was unconstitutional, “a strain of argument that other courts have long rejected,” as the Atlantic reported. In so doing, she embraced the arguments of Justice Clarence Thomas (whose wife Ginni was “extensive[ly]” involved in “challenging the election results”) who opined in his July concurrence in the 6-3 ruling granting presidential immunity for “official acts” that Trump’s prosecution by Smith was unconstitutional. After the Supreme Court’s immunity decree, Trump and allies have called for all cases against him to be dropped.
Throughout the classified documents case, Cannon orchestrated unnecessary hearings, issued questionable rulings that went in the former president’s favor, and oversaw myriad delays. At one point, before dismissing the case, she issued an indefinite postponement of the trial that had made it almost impossible for him to stand trial before the 2024 election. Some outside observers–other judges, former officials, and academics–expressed concerns about her fitness to oversee that case. For example, Paul Rosenzweig, a former George W. Bush homeland security official, has called her delays in Trump’s prosecution “untenable” and a “genuinely unprecedented decision by a judge.”
After the FBI found classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, pursuant to a lawful warrant, and before the Justice Department was able to object, Cannon ordered that an independent arbiter be appointed to review the seized records at Trump’s request. She also issued an extraordinary order blocking federal prosecutors from continuing their examination of the materials, despite their appeal to allow their investigation to continue concurrently. She also overruled proposed procedures from the special master assigned to the case from a list of Trump nominees, siding with the former president’s legal team instead.
The Eleventh Circuit found that she had no jurisdiction to block the U.S. from “using lawfully seized records in a criminal investigation.” That appellate court also rebuked her for how she aided Trump, noting that on multiple occasions she “stepped in with [her] own reasoning.” The court of appeals also ended the special master’s role in reviewing the evidence seized.
Roughly six months later, Cannon was assigned the criminal case against Trump. At that point, two colleagues on the Southern Florida District Court, including the chief judge, privately urged her to recuse herself and hand the case to another jurist. Her role in the case has been criticized by two former White House chief ethics lawyers (one from the George W. Bush administration and one from the Barack Obama administration) and by law professors. In her judicial nomination questionnaire, Cannon claimed she “will carefully review and address any real or potential conflicts [of interest] by reference to… the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, and any and all other laws, rules, and practices governing such circumstances.” She did not recuse herself or transfer the case.
After refusing to recuse, Cannon moved back deadlines multiple times, citing procedural complexities and the need for thorough consideration of legal arguments. In March 2024, for example, she requested both sides propose jury instructions unusually early in the process, and then in May, around the time the trial was originally scheduled, she delayed a deadline for major filings. Just a few weeks after that, prosecutors sought to ban Trump from making public statements about law enforcement officers after he falsely claimed President Biden and the FBI planned to assassinate him during the Mar-a-Lago search. Instead of considering their request, she threatened them with sanctions for not first discussing the issue with the defense. And in early June, she removed an entire paragraph from the indictment, claiming it was unrelated to any specific charge against Trump.
Cannon has faced criticism from judges, attorneys, and academics alike. University of Texas law professor Lee Kovarksy claimed, “the magnitude of the legal mistakes that are happening is weird. They’re always in the same direction, right? [They] are always Trump-favorable.” A former national security attorney said “the fact these motions are even being entertained with a hearing is itself ridiculous.” And a former U.S. district judge pointed out, “it is clear that she is going in a ridiculous direction.” The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian have all reported how Cannon has given repeated deference to Trump’s legal team, accepted “Trump’s unorthodox claims” that most “federal judges would have rejected out of hand,” and that if “there were a judge who actively wanted to delay [the] trial… it’s not clear what they might have done much differently.” Now, with her dismissal of the entire prosecution against Trump, her ruling will likely be appealed to the Eleventh Circuit and then to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Trump case is not Cannon’s only controversial matter since becoming a federal judge less than four years ago. She imposed a substantially lighter sentence than the imprisonment recommended by the sentencing guidelines, cutting the sentence by almost half, for a Trump supporter who made death threats against three Democratic politicians (18 months compared to the 33-41 month sentencing guideline). She also departed from standard practices by closing the courtroom to the public in juror selection for a criminal case involving a former police officer who solicited sex from a teenage boy. She was rebuked for making “a fundamental constitutional error” in doing so.
After clerking for Steven Colloton on the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (who was on Trump’s short list of Supreme Court candidates), Cannon worked in private practice. She then joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida until Trump nominated her to the bench. Despite her limited experience (she had barely practiced law for 12 years), the Republican- controlled Senate, a lame duck Senate, confirmed her after Trump lost the 2020 election, “breaking a 123-year tradition” of not confirming judicial appointments of a defeated president. She was confirmed by the Senate on November 12, 2020, with only 56 yes votes.
More recently, investigative reporters have documented that she failed to disclose private reimbursement for attending two seminars at a luxury resort in Montana hosted by the George Mason Antonin Scalia Law School, a school that has received millions of dollars in gifts orchestrated by Leonard Leo, who hand-picked the Supreme Court candidate and lower court nominees Trump put forward. She has been a member of Leonard Leo’s Federalist Society since 2005 and has claimed to be an originalist and textualist. Unless she is removed from office or steps down or other reforms are adopted, she could act as a federal judge for three or four more decades.