As part of an analysis of how U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, reports from her courtroom show a judge who is both “prickly” and" insecure" and often has trouble understanding what lawyers from both sides try to explain to her.
The controversial Cannon – who has been accused of slow-walking Donald Trump’s obstruction of justice trial related to his alleged illegal retention of government documents – in recent hearings has pressed lawyers to remake their points over and over, which led to the New York Times’ Alan Feuer to question whether, “she does not understand the answers she is receiving or is trying to push back against them.”
“Only the best,” am I right?
How is it not a conflict of interest that “Donald Trump appointed her to the lifetime position”. ? Haven’t judges been asked to recuse themselves over less? I’m genuinely confused.
I don’t think that’s fundamentally disqualifying. What’s the proposal on who could reasonably try this case? Are appointees by political opponents okay? Only appointees pre Clinton?
The bigger problem, regardless of who is on trial, is she was never supposed to be on the bench.
Her promotion was purely ideological. It had nothing to do with her legal accumen.
It’s definitely possible Trump could have found someone who was both technically skilled AND sheep dipped well enough not to be an obvious hack. But… why bother? The Senate didn’t care enough to block her and they certainly aren’t going to impeach her.
So democracy is working as designed.
I also don’t think it’s too high of a bar for the public to want a judge not appointed by the defendant for a criminal trial.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the public had any say in the matter
Nah, the Founding Fathers specifically didn’t want a moron like Trump running things, so this is democracy breaking down.
Is anything “fundamentally disqualifying”? It appears to me that nothing is. It’s all honor code bullshit that only works when everyone is acting in good faith.
The real problem is that she was appointed in the first place. The system that made that possible was never designed to work when half the people running it are saboteurs.
In a normal court, the justices are often held in high regard, whereby whomever appointed them is hardly even a factoid.
The problem is that with Trump, he’s known for quid pro quo as well as just not even knowing the person. Odds are good that Bannon slipped her name to Trump and suddenly she’s “the most brilliant legal mind the nation has ever known. Just brilliant. Very smart.”
Besides being nominated by Trump, I’m not sure if the prosecutors had any standing to have her recused.
Maybe not at the time, but how about now?
She was selected by the Federalist Society. Trump rubber stamped her (like he did the vast majority of appointments he made.)
Living in America 🎶