Aileen Cannon was scared to look like the one 'holding up' the Trump trial: analyst
Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon, the controversial Trump-appointed judge overseeing the federal charges against the former president for hoarding highly classified national defense information at his Mar-a-Lago country club, has set a prospective trial date for August 14th. Experts do not expect this to be the actual date, as one or both parties will almost certainly request a delay over some sort of procedural matter.
However, this does signify one thing, suggested New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman on CNN Tuesday: Cannon knows the whole nation is watching her, and doesn't want to be seen as appearing to obstruct the trial.
"In terms of the timeline, Judge Cannon said the trial date is set for just under two months from now, August 14th," said anchor Alex Marquardt. "How realistic is that?"
"It is not," said former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams. "This case is not going to trial in August. The judge sort of had to do that to respect the defendant's speedy trial rules or speedy trial rights. But it's not uncommon for judges to set that date and then push it forward once the motions and complicated things come up. This is going to be a very complicated case in terms of dealing with how you get classified information in front of a jury. That's going to take months to resolve. The parties all know that; the judge knew that. They actually could have worked out some arrangement to set a trial date further ahead in the future — I'm not quite sure why they didn't. But it's not going to trial in August."
"The judge is very keen on not being seen as the person who is holding this up, I think that's the big issue," said Haberman.
Cannon, who sits on a U.S. district court in South Florida, triggered outrage months ago when she blocked FBI agents from reviewing the documents they seized from Mar-a-Lago, throwing the issue to a special master — which created the appearance she was creating a separate, unique set of legal protections for the president who appointed her. Her ruling was ultimately thrown out in a scathing opinion by a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, including two judges who were themselves Trump appointees.
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