Legal analyst urges motion to kick Judge Cannon off classified documents case

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner on Wednesday urged prosecutors to demand Judge Aileen Cannon be recused from Donald Trump's classified documents case.

Trump is accused of taking government documents upon leaving the White House. Among those documents were classified documents, including things governed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.

But on Tuesday, Cannon decided there were so many pre-trial motions that the trial must be indefinitely delayed. Legal analysts have argued that the judge has refused to deal with the pre-trial motions, which has resulted in them stacking up.

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"The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming — would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court's duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical of CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury," Cannon wrote in her court notification.

Kirschner sarcastically commented on X, "If only the law provided the option of filing and fully litigating a motion to recuse a judge whose 'impartiality might reasonably be questioned.'"

Former George W. Bush ethics czar Richard Painter commented that this was the fear he and colleagues Norm Eisen and Fred Wertheimer had last year when they asked for Cannon to be recused before the process began.

"A competent and unbiased judge would have tried this case to verdict already," lawyer George Conway agreed.

MSNBC's legal analyst Lisa Rubin said Wednesday that if special counsel Jack Smith wants to recuse her from the case, "His best option is to wait for a substantive decision on an issue like Trump's motion to compel additional discoveries to support a selective or vindictive prosecution, motion to dismiss, that's sort of a motion in search of a bases,"

"Most judges say, well, wait a second, if you can't support that on your own, I'm not going to give you lots of extra discovery so you can try and attack the Department of Justice and say it is clear prosecutors have vindictively prosecuted you, and yet Aileen Cannon seems to be leaning in that direction or veering toward it," Rubin continued.

"If that happens, or another decision on a motion to dismiss that he really disagrees with, count on him to appeal, but also to potentially ask the 11th circuit for the first time to recuse her from the case."

Trump was charged under the Espionage Act and has pleaded not guilty.