The Ryan Routh case has an Aileen Cannon problem.
The Donald Trump appointee can solve it by recusing herself as the alleged attempted Trump assassin has requested. Or she can roll the dice and have the issue hovering over the prosecution.
Last week, Routh’s lawyers urged Cannon to step aside. Among other things, they cited the Republican presidential nominee’s praise of the judge who dismissed his classified documents case. They observed that if Trump takes office again, he’d have the power “to nominate Your Honor to a federal judgeship on a higher court were a vacancy to arise.”
But this week, the Justice Department said there’s no reason for Cannon to recuse herself. The government’s opposition filing was brief and didn’t grapple with all of Routh’s points. For example, it cited precedent for the proposition that a judge shouldn’t be disqualified based only on the identity of the president who appointed them.
That’s obviously true but it misses the heart of this unique matter: Cannon has not only behaved in strange ways that helped the one defendant to whom she’s indebted for her lifetime appointment to the federal bench, but she also has incentive to deal harshly with the defendant who stands accused of trying to kill the man who could make her an even higher-ranking jurist.
To be clear, this isn’t an “anti-Trump” point; it’s arguably the opposite. If you’re someone who wants to see Routh (who has pleaded not guilty) convicted, then you should want to remove any issues that could possibly taint the case. As it stands now, the Cannon issue is baked in before the case even gets off the ground.
It’s not like a different judge would be inclined to go easy on a defendant in a high-profile case like this. So even if Cannon were to recuse herself, there isn’t good reason to think some other judge would measurably improve Routh’s chances of receiving a favorable outcome. Cannon hasn’t ruled yet on Routh’s recusal motion. But just as she never stepped aside in Trump’s case (her dismissal of which is currently being appealed by special counsel Jack Smith) and behaved throughout the way she did, she might choose to stick out the Routh case as well, even if doing so jeopardizes it. So despite its stated opposition to Routh’s motion, the government might secretly hope to lose this one. Further highlighting the unusual nature of this litigation is that, even if Routh succeeds in removing Cannon from the case at this early stage, it’s unclear how much of a victory (if any) it really would be for him in the end. 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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