According to three leading scholars specializing in federal government ethics laws, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon needs to either recuse herself or be preemptively forced off overseeing the trial of Donald Trump related to special counsel Jack Smith's investigation of the former president.
In a column for Slate, legal experts Norm Eisen, Richard Painter and Fred Wertheimer present multiple paths for the Trump-appointed Cannon to be ousted either using federal laws or allowances under Florida state law.
Cannon, who was heavily scrutinized and criticized for her rulings last year when the Department of Justice retrieved stolen government documents from the former president's Mar-a-Lago resort, was assigned the 37-count case that alleges conspiracy and violations of the Espionage Act.
With that in mind, and considering how her Trump-related rulings were smacked aside by the conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the three attorneys first suggested Judge Cannon could "gracefully" recuse herself and put all the outrage to rest.
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If she demurs, they suggest the Department of Justice deploy 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), which states a judge “shall disqualify himself [or herself] in any proceeding in which his [or her] impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” with the legal experts adding, "Judge Cannon’s situation clearly fits that test, and she is obligated to recuse herself in Trump’s case."
Beyond that, they suggested, "One possibility that should be explored is for the chief judge of the district court, Chief Judge Cecilia Altonaga, to reassign the case pursuant to the court’s power under federal law to 'assign [ ] cases so far as [local] rules and orders do not otherwise prescribe.' Nothing in the Southern District of Florida’s local rules or Internal Operating Procedures is to the contrary."
They added, "Under binding 11th Circuit precedents a case should be reassigned to a different judge if, among other reasons, the original judge would have “difficulty” setting aside her previous views and findings and reassignment would not result in a waste of judicial resources. Those factors clearly weigh in favor of reassignment here, due to the difficulties that Judge Cannon will likely face in diverging from her previous, unorthodox, and wrongful rulings benefitting Trump."
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