Judge Aileen Cannon 'must' recuse herself or she could be forced out: Constitutional law expert

Judge Aileen Cannon was assigned the criminal case against Donald Trump at random, but she must now recuse herself because of the potential for a perception of bias, Harvard Constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe said on Tuesday.

Tribe appeared on MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell to discuss the implications of Cannon's assignment to the former president's case. Earlier on Tuesday, Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 counts in connection with his purported mishandling of classified materials.

The host asked Tribe about the possibility that Cannon could make a mockery of the Constitution with her rulings in the case "since she has already shown such contempt for this investigation" since it first entered her courtroom.

Tribe replied that it's a "shame" that this case, "at least as it now stands, is not going to be tried before a normal judge, who would pay attention to the fact that these facts, there really does appear to be no defense."

"She would not tolerate, if she were a normal judge, many of the bizarre arguments that former president Trump is making," he said. "The argument, somehow, that the Presidential Records Act, which has no bearing on these charges, somehow gave him the right to keep national security information and withhold it from the government and lie to the government about having it. But we don't have a normal judge. That is really the problem."

Tribe added that would love to give Cannon the benefit of the doubt, but that he already did that before "she interfered without any legal basis in this very case, of the extent that the unanimous 11th circuit, a very conservative court, not only reversed her twice, but castigated her for injecting herself in violation of the separation of powers."

He noted that he is "desperately worried," but later in the interview explained that Cannon "must" recuse herself under 28 U.S. code section 455. Under that standard, he said, "a federal judge must recuse him or herself in any case where that judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

"No person could look at the situation and fail at least to say that that standard is met," he said. "And if she doesn't recuse herself, then the 11th circuit, through a writ of mandamus, can direct her to do so, which is very rare."

He added that "this is indeed a very rare case."

"Not only was she appointed by president Trump at the time, but she has indicated in her rulings that she does have utter contempt for this prosecution, that she thinks as a former president he's on a special pedestal."

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