U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is reportedly being floated as an attorney general pick for Donald Trump if he wins next month’s election. This is significant on a couple of levels: for what it signals about a possible second Trump administration; and for what it signals about pending litigation that’s trying to get Cannon disqualified, both in Trump’s classified documents case (now on appeal) and in the case against Ryan Routh, Trump’s alleged would-be assassin.
ABC News reported Tuesday that a “proposed personnel roster circulating within Donald Trump’s campaign and transition operation” lists the Trump-appointed judge, who dismissed the documents case in July, “as a possible candidate for attorney general.” NBC News and MSNBC haven’t confirmed the report, which cited “sources familiar with the matter.”
But if it’s true, then it could break new ground, even for a Trump appointment. Trump would be potentially nominating a relatively inexperienced judge, confirmed in the waning days of his first presidency, who handled the documents case bizarrely and ultimately dismissed it in his favor. That dismissal is currently on appeal before a federal court that previously smacked down Cannon’s Trump-friendly handling of litigation around the Mar-a-Lago search, before Trump was charged. That episode raised concerns about her handling of the prosecution after Trump was charged, and her handling of the case since then has vindicated those concerns.
That is, Trump would be nominating as the nation’s top lawyer and law enforcement official someone who not only has directly helped him avoid criminal liability but who has also been effectively told by more experienced judges that she doesn’t understand the law. Of course, if Cannon were confirmed in this hypothetical scenario, she would no longer be presiding over Trump’s case; but if Trump wins, then there likely wouldn’t be a case much longer, because he could try to pardon himself and/or have his newly installed attorney general get the case dismissed.
That would, in turn, raise further absurd potential scenarios, like Attorney General Cannon (or a deputy) moving to dismiss a case previously dismissed by Judge Cannon. This is just a taste of the world of a potential second Trump term.
This news could also have more immediate effects, regardless of whether Trump wins the election. That’s because there are two pending matters in which parties are trying to kick Cannon off the case due to the appearance of bias for Trump.
In the classified documents case, in which Trump pleaded not guilty before Cannon dismissed it, outside parties are pressing the point to the appeals court, which is considering whether to reverse Cannon’s dismissal. If it does, then a question will be whether the court sends the case back to a different judge. It’s unclear whether the appeals court would do that, but this latest news could make that outcome more likely. Cannon’s ouster is also being sought by Routh, who was charged last month with attempting to assassinate the Republican presidential candidate. As it happens, Cannon, who presides in the geographic region where the alleged attempt occurred, has got that case, too. Routh has pleaded not guilty and has argued that Cannon can’t handle the case fairly, due to, among other things, the possibility that Trump could appoint her to higher judicial office should he win next month. Routh raised the recusal claim before this latest report, which shows another way that Trump could reward Cannon and how she is incentivized to deal harshly with the defendant who allegedly tried to kill her benefactor. Indeed, ABC’s report has already made it into Routh’s latest legal filing as Cannon decides whether to take herself off the case. His lawyers write that “were Mr. Trump to become President again, he would have authority to elevate Your Honor to a federal appellate court (including the U.S. Supreme Court) or to high-ranking positions in the Executive Branch.” Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in Donald Trump’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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