Judge Cannon was encouraged to withdraw from the secret documents case

Shortly after inheriting the Mar-a-Lago secret documents case, Florida federal Judge Eileen Cannon rejected the advice of two of her more experienced colleagues and encouraged her to withdraw from the case, according to new information released Thursday. The New York Times (Free link). A randomly selected judge refused to dismiss the case.

To comment on times “Her appointment raised eyebrows because she had little trial experience and had already shown unusual favoritism for Mr. Trump by intervening in a way that helped in the criminal investigation that led to his indictment, only to be overturned by a highly conservative appeals court that criticized him. The extraordinary, unheralded efforts The efforts made by Judge Cannon's colleagues to persuade her to step down add another dimension to the growing criticism of her handling of the case.

the times In particular, it identifies that Judge Cannon broke with tradition by refusing to delegate some preliminary requests to a Florida judge more experienced than her, Judge Bruce Reinhart, who first intervened in the case by signing the FBI search warrant that led to the seizure of hundreds of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.

And the times “Since then, Judge Cannon has shown hostility toward prosecutors, processed pretrial motions slowly, and postponed the trial indefinitely, refusing to set a trial start date while the prosecution and defense told him they may be ready to begin this summer.” »

Chief Judge for the Southern District of Florida, Cecilia Altonaga, was one of two people who advised Cannon to withdraw from the case, according to the court. times. She tried twice and not once to convince her colleague, the second time over the phone.

“The chief justice, appointed by former President George W. Bush, could have made a clearer argument: It would be unacceptable for Judge Cannon to oversee the trial because of what happened during the investigation, a criminal offense that led to Mr. Trump being indicted.” On charges of illegally retaining national security documents after leaving office and obstructing government efforts to recover them. »

But Judge Cannon refused. Despite her seniority and responsibilities, the Chief Justice does not have the power to force her to change her mind.

Neither Judge Altonaga nor Judge Cannon commented on the case. The name of the other judge involved in this case was not mentioned in the article times.

Uniqueness times It comes on the eve of a series of hearings in the secret documents case, one of which relates to Trump's lawyers' request for a mistrial.

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(Image for the southern region of Florida)