'Not normal at all': Legal analyst buries Aileen Cannon's latest maneuver
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon this week delivered yet another eyebrow-raising ruling when she allowed lawyers allied with former President Donald Trump to present oral arguments later this month in which they'll argue that the entire Mar-a-Lago classified documents case should be thrown out.
CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams didn't mince words on Wednesday when asked about Cannon allowing these oral arguments, which appear likely to further delay the trial.
"Not normal at all," he said of Cannon's maneuvers. "There is literally no reason why the judge needs to have additional folks come in at the oral argument."
He acknowledged that it's perfectly normal for judges to allow outside attorneys file amicus briefs that they can take into consideration, but he said that these briefs are almost never presented as oral arguments in court as such a process would be far too time consuming.
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Added to that, said Williams, the argument being made by the Trump-friendly lawyers claiming that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed is hardly novel, as similar arguments about the appointments of special prosecutors have been shot down in courts again and again.
Wall Street Journal reporter Molly Ball argued that this is the kind of ruling that has led observers to question whether Cannon is making decisions as "a result of her relative inexperience or some sort of bias toward the defendant."
Regardless, said Ball, Cannon's actions have served to "delay the case repeatedly."
"The end result has been that this is not going to trial anytime soon," she said.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Judge Aileen Cannon's last name.
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