'Learning on the job': NY Times investigation reveals Trump judge's lack of experience

The Trump-appointed federal judge randomly assigned to preside over former president Donald Trump's classified documents case has been called into question over her ability to act as an objective arbiter after the conservative-leaning U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit rebuked her previous ruling.

And that’s not the only question mark surrounding U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s qualifications.

According to new reporting from The New York Times, Cannon has scant experience hearing criminal cases.

A Bloomberg Law database listing 224 criminal cases that were assigned to Cannon reviewed by The Times found that just four went to trial, all of which were largely routine cases, meaning the judge presiding over arguably one of the most important criminal cases in U.S. history is going into the trial with a total of 14 days experience trying criminal cases, the report said.

Michael S. Schmidt and Charlie Savage write for The Times that, “Judge Cannon’s suitability to handle such a high-stakes and high-profile case has already attracted scrutiny amid widespread perceptions that she demonstrated bias in the former president’s favor last year, when she oversaw a long-shot lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump challenging the FBI’s court-approved search of his Florida home and club, Mar-a-Lago.

“In that case, she shocked legal experts across the ideological divide by disrupting the investigation — including suggesting that Mr. Trump gets special protections as a former president that any other target of a search warrant would not receive — before a conservative appeals court shut her down, ruling that she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene.

Cannon’s lack of experience and past rulings suggesting bias in favor of the former president raises questions over her ability to preside over the trial fairly, Georgetown University criminal law professor Julie O’Sullivan told The Times.

“She’s both an inexperienced judge and a judge who has previously indicated that she thinks the former president is subject to special rules so who knows what she will do with those issues?” O’Sullivan.

The report notes that Cannon will be asked to resolve uniquely complicated issues such as how classified information can be used under the Classified Information Procedures Act, a national security law that there is no indication Cannon has encountered as a judge.

Schmidt and Savage write: “The Trump case is likely to raise myriad complexities that would be challenging for any judge — let alone one who will be essentially learning on the job.”

Read the full article here.