SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEK Log in

Trump Documents Inquiry Trump Is Arraigned The Trump Show Goes On Likely Next Steps The Indictment, Annotated Fact Check

Judge in Trump Documents Case Has

Scant Criminal Trial Experience
Judge Aileen M. Cannon, under scrutiny for past rulings favoring
the former president, has presided over only a few criminal cases
that went to trial.

Give this article 786

Judge Aileen M. Cannon, 42, has been on the bench since November 2020, when
President Donald J. Trump gave her a lifetime appointment shortly after he lost re-
Senate Judiciary Committee, via Associated Press

By Michael S. Schmidt and Charlie Savage

Michael S. Schmidt reported from New York, and Charlie Savage reported
from Washington.
June 14, 2023 Updated 3:54 p.m. ET

Aileen M. Cannon, the Federal District Court judge assigned to

preside over former President Donald J. Trump’s classified
documents case, has scant experience running criminal trials,
calling into question her readiness to handle what is likely to be an
extraordinarily complex and high-profile courtroom clash.
Judge Cannon, 42, has been on the bench since November 2020,
when Mr. Trump gave her a lifetime appointment shortly after he
lost re-election. She had not previously served as any kind of judge,
and because about 98 percent of federal criminal cases are
resolved with plea deals, she has had only a limited opportunity to
learn how to preside over a trial.
A Bloomberg Law database lists 224 criminal cases that have been
assigned to her, and a New York Times review of those cases
identified four that went to trial. Each was a relatively routine
matter, like a felon who was charged with illegally possessing a
gun. In all, the four cases added up to 14 trial days.
Judge Cannon’s suitability to handle such a high-stakes and high-
rofile case has already attracted scrutiny amid widespread
perceptions that she demonstrated bias in the former president’s
favor last year, when she oversaw a long-shot lawsuit filed by Mr.
Trump challenging the F.B.I.’s court-approved search of his Florida
home and club, Mar-a-Lago.
In that case, she shocked legal experts across the ideological divide
by disrupting the investigation — including suggesting that Mr.
Trump gets special protections as a former president that any
other target of a search warrant would not receive — before a
conservative appeals court shut her down, ruling that she never
had legitimate legal authority to intervene.
“She’s both an inexperienced judge and a judge who has previously
indicated that she thinks the former president is subject to special Editors’ Picks
rules so who knows what she will do with those issues?” said Julie
O’Sullivan, a Georgetown University criminal law professor and These Flies Age
Faster After
former federal prosecutor. Witnessing Death

In theory, Judge Cannon could step aside on her own for any A BeautifulEvening
of Music Emerged
reason, or the special counsel, Jack Smith, could ask her to do so From a New York
under a federal law that says judges are supposed to recuse City Sewer

themselves if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” 24 Works of Fiction

— and, if she declines, ask an appeals court to order her to recuse. to Read This
Summer
There is no sign that either of them is considering taking that step,
however — or what its legal basis would be.
The appeals court last year found that she was wrong about
jurisdiction law, not that she was biased. And judges have
previously heard litigation involving presidents who appointed
them — including the Trump search warrant lawsuit, in which,
notably, two of the three appeals court judges who reversed her
intervention were also Trump appointees .

By bringing the charges in Florida, where most of the alleged

crimes took place, instead of Washington, where the grand jury
that primarily investigated the matter sat, the special counsel, Mr.
Smith, avoided a potential fight over whether the case was in the
right venue but ran the risk that Judge Cannon could be assigned
the case.

Takeaways From Trump’s Indictment in the Documents Case

New revelations. The 49-page indictment against Donald Trump and a
personal aide, Walt Nauta, revealed a host of potentially devastating new
details in the Justice Department’s inquiry into the former president’s
mishandling of classified documents. Here are some of the most significant
allegations:

But the chances appeared low. Under the Southern District of

Florida’s practices, a computer in the clerk’s office assigns new
cases randomly among judges who sit in the division where the
matter arose or a neighboring one — even if the matter relates to a
previous case. Nevertheless, Judge Cannon got it.

In a previous case, Judge Cannon suggested that Mr. Trump gets special protections
as a former president that any other target of a search warrant would not
receive. Doug Mills/The New York Times

The chief clerk of the court has said that five active judges were
eligible to draw Mr. Trump’s case and that Judge Cannon’s odds of ,

receiving it were slightly higher than others because half of her

cases come from the West Palm Beach division, where Mar-a-Lago
is. The clerk has also said normal procedures were followed in
making the assignment.
Several lawyers who have appeared before Judge Cannon in run-
f-the-mill criminal cases described her in interviews as generally
competent and straightforward — and also, in notable contrast to
her rulings hobbling the Justice Department after the search,
someone who does not otherwise have a reputation of being
unusually sympathetic to defendants.
At the same time, they said, she is demonstrably inexperienced
and can bristle when her actions are questioned or unexpected
issues arise. The lawyers declined to speak publicly because they
did not want to be identified criticizing a judge who has a lifetime
appointment and before whom they will likely appear again.
Judge Cannon’s four criminal trials identified in the review
involved basic charges, including accusations of possession of a
gun by a felon assaulting a prosecutor smuggling undocumented
, ,

migrants from the Bahamas, and tax fraud The four matters .

generated between two and five days of trial each.

The Trump case is likely to raise myriad complexities that would
be challenging for any judge — let alone one who will be essentially
learning on the job.
There are expected to be fights, for example, over how classified
information can be used as evidence under the Classified
Information Procedures Act, a national security law that Judge
Cannon has apparently never dealt with before.
Defense lawyers are also likely to ask her to suppress as evidence
against Mr. Trump notes and testimony from one of his lawyers.
While another federal judge already ruled that a grand jury could
get otherwise confidential lawyer communications under the so-
crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege, Judge
Cannon will not be bound by that decision in determining what can
be used in trial.
The judge will likely have to vet claims of prosecutorial misconduct
put forward by Mr. Trump and his defense team.
“That has already been signaled in a lot of the media statements
made by Trump and his lawyers,” Samuel Buell, a Duke University
law professor and former federal prosecutor, said of the
misconduct claims. “This is very typical, but she is a very
inexperienced judge, so even if she weren’t favorable to Trump, she
might hear a lot of stuff and think she is hearing stuff that is
unusual even though it’s made all the time.”
And the judge will decide on challenges to potential jurors when
either side claims someone might be biased for or against one of
the most famous and polarizing people in the world.
Fritz Scheller, a longtime defense lawyer in Florida who has had
cases in Judge Cannon’s district but not appeared before her, said
in complex and high-profile cases, even the most experienced
judges are forced to think on their feet to make swift decisions.
In this case, he said, the issue of how to protect the jury from being
influenced by the vast media coverage alone “will be a herculean
task” for any judge.

Alina Habba, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, speaking to reporters in Miami on

Tuesday. The case has already received vast media coverage that could influence a
jury. Doug Mills/The New York Times

In the aftermath of the F.B.I.’s Mar-a-Lago search Judge Cannon ,

repeatedly sided with the man who had appointed her. She blocked
investigators from having access to the classified government
documents seized from him and entertained an unprecedented
legal theory put forward by his lawyers that White House records
could be kept from the Justice Department in a criminal
investigation on the basis of executive privilege.
Eventually, a conservative appeals court panel — including two
other Trump appointees — reversed her writing in a pair of ,

scathing opinions that she had misread the law and had no
jurisdiction to interfere in the investigation. The Supreme Court let
those rebukes stand without comment, and she acquiesced,
dismissing the lawsuit.
It remains to be seen what she will take from the reputational
damage she brought upon herself at the start of what is likely to be
many decades on the bench. She could continue her pattern from
last year, or she could use her second turn in the spotlight to
adjudicate the documents case more evenhandedly.
While Mr. Trump and his White House lawyers put forward many
young conservatives to fill judicial vacancies when he was
president, Judge Cannon was unusually young and inexperienced.
She was 38 years old and working on appellate matters as an
assistant United States attorney in Florida when Mr. Trump
nominated her for a lifetime appointment, and little about her legal
résumé up to that point was remarkable.
Still, the Senate majority leader at the time, Mitch McConnell,
Republican of Kentucky, pushed through her confirmation vote in
the lame-duck session after the election. Her nomination received
little attention and did not draw particular fire from Democrats;
she was confirmed 56 to 21, with 12 Democrats joining 44
Republicans to vote in favor.
The daughter of a Cuban exile, she grew up in Miami and
graduated from Duke University and the University of Michigan
Law School. She was identifiable as ideologically conservative,
having joined the Federalist Society in law school and clerked for a
conservative appeals court judge.
She had been approached by the office of Senator Marco Rubio,
Republican of Florida, and asked to apply to a panel he uses to vet
potential judicial candidates, she wrote on her Senate Judiciary
Committee questionnaire She also interviewed with a lawyer for .

Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, before talking to the

White House, she wrote.
(The Senate’s “blue slip” practice empowers senators to block
confirmation proceedings for nominees from their states, so
senators wield significant power over who the White House
nominates. There are currently three vacant seats on the Federal
District Court in South Florida for which President Biden has made
no nomination, suggesting that Mr. Rubio and Mr. Scott have not
agreed to let him fill those seats with anyone acceptable to a
Democratic White House.)

Judge Cannon had been approached by Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida,
and asked to apply to a panel that vets potential judicial candidates. Tom Brenner for
The New York Times

Judge Cannon had graduated from law school in 2008, and her 12
years as a lawyer were the minimum the American Bar
Association considers necessary for a judicial nominee. A
substantial majority of the bar association’s vetting panel deemed
her to be merely “qualified,” though a minority deemed her “highly
qualified.”
Her criminal trial experience before becoming a judge was limited.
In 2004, when she was working as a paralegal at the Justice
Department’s civil rights division before going to law school, she
had “assisted federal prosecutors in two federal criminal jury
trials,” she wrote on the questionnaire.

From 2009 to 2012, she was an associate at the law firm Gibson
Dunn, where she worked on regulatory proceedings, not criminal
matters. (She wrote that she participated in two administrative
trials before agencies like the Securities and Exchange
Commission.)
From 2013 to 2020, she was an assistant United States attorney in
Florida. While most of that time was spent on appellate work, until
2015 she had worked in the major crimes division on wide range
of federal firearms, narcotics, fraud and immigration offenses” that
resulted in the conviction of 41 defendants, she wrote. Most of those
cases, however, ended in plea deals: She tried just four of them to a
jury verdict, she wrote.
She was the lead counsel for two of those cases — both involving a
felon charged with possessing a firearm, she wrote, and served as
assistant to the main prosecutor in the other two cases, one of
which she said involved possession of images of child sexual
exploitation.
Other parts of Judge Cannon’s questionnaire answers put forward
few experiences or accomplishments that clearly distinguished her
as seasoned and demonstrably ready for the powers and
responsibilities of a lifetime appointment to be a federal judge.
Itasked, for example, for every published writing she had
produced. She listed 20 items. Of those, 17 were pieces she had
written in the summer of 2002 as a college intern at The Miami
Herald’s Spanish-language sister publication, El Nuevo Herald,
with headlines like “Winners in the Library Quest Competition.”
The other three were articles published on Gibson Dunn’s website
describing cases the firm had handled, each of which had three
other co-authors.
The questionnaire also asked her to provide all reports,
memorandums and policy statements she had written for any
organization, all testimony or official statements on public or legal
policy she had ever delivered to any public body, and all her
speeches, talks, panel discussions, lectures or question-and-answer
sessions.
“None,” she wrote.
Kitty Bennett Susan , C. Beachy and Matthew Cullen contributed reporting.

Judge Aileen M. Cannon

How a Trump-Appointed Judge Could Influence His

Documents Case
June 12, 2023

Trump Appointee Will Remain Judge in Documents

Case, Clerk Says
June 10, 2023

A Trump-Appointed Judge Who Showed Him Favor

Gets the Documents Case
June 9, 2023

Two Trump-Appointed Judges Rebuke a Third for

Bending the Law in His Favor
Dec. 2, 2022

Appeals Court Scraps Special Master Review in

Trump Documents Case
Dec. 1, 2022

Appeals Court Frees Justice Dept. to Use Sensitive

Files Seized From Trump
Sept. 21, 2022

Trump Ruling Lifts Profile of Judge and Raises

Legal Eyebrows
Sept. 7, 2022

‘Deeply Problematic’: Experts Question Judge’s

Intervention in Trump Inquiry
Sept. 5, 2022

Michael S. Schmidt
Washington correspondent covering national security and
is a
federal investigations. He was part of two teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 — one
for reporting on workplace sexual harassment and the other for coverage of President
Trump and his campaign’s ties to Russia. @ NYTMike
Charlie Savage is a Washington-based national security and legal policy correspondent.
A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, he previously worked at The Boston Globe and The
Miami Herald. His most recent book is “Power Wars: The Relentless Rise of Presidential
Authority and Secrecy.” @ charlie_savage Facebook •

Read 786 Comments

Give this article 786

Our Coverage of the Trump Documents Case

The JusticeDepartment has filed federal criminal charges against former President
Donald Trump over his mishandling of classified documents.

A Historic Indictment: Federal prosecutors said that Trump put national security
secrets at risk by mishandling classified documents and schemed to block the
government from reclaiming the material. “The Daily” looks at the evidence .

Arraignment: On June 13, Trump and Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed
to investigate the former president, found themselves 20 feet from each other for
a 50-minute courtroom encounter unlike any other in the country’s history.

Trump’s Legal Strategy: Trump and his lawyers have already tested several
defenses to challenge his indictment, but their arguments could be hard to
sustain in court.
​​Espionage Act Cases: The former president was charged under a 100-year-old
law that has been used to prosecute spies and leakers. Earlier cases have ended
in prison sentences .

New Restrictions: Trump and Walt Nauta, his personal aide who was charged as
a co-conspirator , were ordered by a federal magistrate judge to not discuss their
case. That could be quite challenging for them .

The Judge: Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who showed favor to the
former president earlier in the investigation, has scant experience running
criminal trials Here’s how her decisions could affect the case
. .

More in Politics Trending in The Times

Germany Adopts a More Muscular

Security Plan. Critics Call It ‘Weak.’

Kevin Spacey Hopes to Return to Acting

After London Criminal Trial

via Internet Archive Doug Mills/The New York Times Michael Loccisano/Getty Images For Sxsw Ivan Menezes, Who Led a Liquor Giant,
Kaczynski Is Said to Have Died by A Deflated,Low-Energy Trump, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Film Dies at 63
Suicide in Prison Now Twice-Indicted at 77: ‘Some Studio Objects to Trump’s Use of
Birthday’ ‘Air’ Audio Fox News Tells Tucker Carlson to Stop
Posting Videos on Twitter

They Found a Million Pennies. Now

They Need Someone to Take Them.

New Obesity Drugs Come With a Side

Effect of Shaming
Cherry The New York Times Mike Smith/NBCU Photo Bank, Images
Trump
Jon
Supporters’ Violent Rhetoric
for

Hillary Clinton’s Emails: A Nation

via Getty
What We Know About the I-95 Collapse
in His Defense Disturbs Experts Struggles to Unsubscribe in Philadelphia

Editors’ Picks
Two People Are Sought in Harassment
of a Bison Calf at Grand Teton National
Park

My Sister-in-Law Spent All Her Parents’

Money When She Took Them In. Now
She Wants More!

‘IHeard a Voice Coming From Behind a

Koren Shadmi Aaron Tilley for The New York Times. Set designer: Sandy Sara Andreasson Nearby Stack of Books’
Not Your Dad’s Dad Food To Truly Understand the Past, Pick
Suffield.
How to Have a ‘Sexual State of the
Up an Old Magazine
Union’

Go to Home Page »

news Opinion Arts Living More Subscribe

Home Page Today's Opinion Today's Arts Automotive Reader Center Home Delivery
World Columnists Art & Design Games The Athletic Digital Subscriptions
Coronavirus Editorials Books Education Wirecutter
U.S. Guest Essays Best Sellers Book List Food Cooking
Games
Politics Letters Dance Health Headway Cooking
New York Sunday Opinion Movies Jobs Live Events Email Newsletters
Business Opinion Video Music Love The Learning Network Corporate Subscriptions
Tech Pop Culture Magazine Tools & Services Education Rate
Science Television Parenting Podcasts Mobile Applications
Sports Theater Real Estate Video Replica Edition
Wildfire Tracker Video: Arts Style Graphics International
Obituaries T Magazine TimesMachine Canada
Today's Paper Travel Times Store Español
Corrections Manage My Account 中文网
Trending NYTLicensing
© 2023 The New York Times Company NYTCo Contact Us Accessibility Work with us Advertise T Brand Studio Your Ad Choices Privacy Policy Terms of Service Terms of Sale Site Map Help Subscriptions