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Miles J. Herszenhorn
Aileen Cannon, a U.S. district judge appointed by former President Donald Trump to the federal bench, will initially oversee the federal case against the man who elevated her to the role, according to ABC News and the New York Times.
The assignment of the case to the Trump-appointed judge comes after a federal grand jury indicted the former president on Thursday on charges related to the recovery of more than 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago.
This isn’t the first time Cannon has been involved in the federal investigation into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents that were seized from Mar-a-Lago in summer 2022. She approved Trump’s request for a special master to review the documents seized by investigators for potential claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.
Thursday marked the second time Trump was indicted on criminal charges, but the first time in American history that a former president has faced federal charges. Cannon’s involvement will add additional scrutiny to a case caught up in political tensions as Trump seeks the Republican nominations in the 2024 presidential election.
Here is what we know about the judge who will preside over Trump’s case during his court appearance on Tuesday in Miami:
Her previous involvement in the case
Cannon’s decision to appoint a special master temporarily halted a criminal investigation by the Justice Department into the classified documents that were recovered from Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ opposed Trump’s request for a special master at the time, arguing that the documents were already reviewed for attorney and executive privilege and opposed halting the use of the documents for investigating potential crimes.
The appointment of a special master was appealed by the Justice Department and overturned by a federal appeals panel in December. In their ruling, the judges criticized Cannon’s decision, saying that the traditional way to challenge evidence in an investigation is after charges are filed.
“The law is clear,” the three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”
Additionally, several of Cannon’s rulings related to the investigation into the documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago drew scrutiny for being perceived as unusually favorable for Trump.
Her appointment caused controversy
As a Trump-appointed judge, Cannon’s role presiding over the case will bring additional controversy to a historical case against a former president, but she might also receive attention for her past affiliations with Republican politicians.
Cannon and her husband both donated $100 to the campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to the New York Times.
Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama, said the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the “reassignment” of judges who lean so heavily for a defendant that it calls into question their objectivity.
“This is persuasive authority that Judge Cannon must step aside if the case falls to her as a permanent assignment,” Vance said in a series of tweets.
But Nancy DePodesta, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Illinois now practicing white-collar and government law at Saul Ewing, said she doesn’t think Trump’s appointment is necessarily a conflict forcing her to recuse herself. The Justice Department may review whether there is a conflict based on her involvement in the investigation before the indictment, she said.
“I don’t think there is necessarily a conflict,” DePodesta said.
From journalism to the judiciary
Cannon was born in Cali, Colombia in 1981, but grew up in Florida where she graduated high school from Ransom Everglades, a private preparatory school.
She attended college at Duke University and wrote for a Spanish-language newspaper, before graduating with her bachelor’s degree in 2003. She later attended law school at the University of Michigan.
Before becoming a federal judge, Cannon spent time clerking for a conservative federal judge and working for the major law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. She left the firm in 2012 to become a federal attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
She was appointed to her current role on the federal bench by Trump in 2020. She was later confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 56-21 vote in November 2020.
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