MIAMI (AP) – A month after former United States (US) president Donald Trump was charged with mishandling classified documents, the judge presiding over the case is set to take on a more visible role as she weighs competing requests on a trial date and hears arguments this week on a procedural, but potentially crucial, area of the law.
A pretrial conference today to discuss procedures for handling classified information will represent the first courtroom arguments in the case before US District Judge Aileen Cannon since Trump was indicted five weeks ago. The arguments could provide insight into how Cannon intends to preside over the case while she also confronts the unresolved question of how to schedule Trump’s trial as he campaigns for president.
Those issues would be closely watched in any trial involving a former president. But Cannon could face additional scrutiny in light of a much-dissected ruling she issued last year that granted the Trump team’s request for a special master to conduct an independent review of the reams of classified records removed by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago estate. A three-judge federal appeals panel reversed her order, rebuking Cannon for a ruling it said she lacked the legal authority to make in the first place.
Cannon’s ruling, in a lawsuit Trump brought against the Justice Department, elicited criticism from legal experts who saw her as overly preferential to the former president. It also focused public attention on her limited experience as a judge, particularly in hugely sensitive national security matters, given that she was appointed to the bench just three years ago by Trump.
Still, some Florida lawyers say there’s no doubt, as the judge now assigned to Trump’s criminal case, that she’s mindful of the stakes of the most politically explosive federal prosecution in recent memory.
“She is not going to want to do anything but go by the book. The challenge is there has never been a book like this,” said a former US Attorney in Miami Kendall Coffey who served on the advisory committee that reviewed Cannon’s judicial application. He said he was impressed with her credentials and felt confident she would be able to oversee the case fairly.
“I think she is going to want to be very well-regarded for her judicial leadership of this case,” Coffey said.
