Aileen Cannon’s Future Looks Bleak

It is time for prosecutor Jack Smith to have Judge Aileen Cannon removed from Donald Trump’s classified documents case, a former federal prosecutor has said.

Glenn Kirschner, who was a federal prosecutor for more than 30 years, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday that Smith should seek Cannon’s removal from the case.

“Jack Smith literally and figuratively lays down the law. The disqualification bucket runneth over, and it’s time for a motion to remove Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon from presiding over a case involving a defendant to whom she owes her job,” he wrote on Wednesday.

Kirschner has been a frequent critic of Trump.

Cannon is overseeing the case in which Trump is accused of illegally retaining classified documents, hoarding them at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and obstructing attempts by federal officials to retrieve them. The former president has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He has denied any wrongdoing in the case and has claimed that the documents he retained were personal.

In a court filing on Tuesday, Smith strongly criticized Cannon’s proposed jury instructions in the Trump trial, which would allow a jury to decide that Trump was legally entitled to keep presidential records as personal items.

Pam Keith, Esq, CEO of the Center for Employment Justice and who attended the 2020 Democratic Party convention as a nominee, said that Cannon has no future as a judge if Biden is re-elected.

“Aileen Cannon is angling for a [Supreme Court] nomination. She has a PERSONAL stake in helping Trump avoid conviction, and is doing her level best to curry his favor. She has ZERO future if Biden wins,” she wrote on X on Thursday.

Ty Cobb, former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Maryland and a former White House lawyer in the Trump administration, said that an appeal court will take Cannon off the case.

Cobb said that Smith’s court filing this week, in which he strongly objected to Cannon’s proposed jury instructions, signaled that he is preparing to seek her removal.

Newsweek sought email comment from Cannon’s office on Thursday.

Speaking on Wednesday’s OutFront on CNN, Cobb said that prosecutors are prepared to take an appeal to the 11th circuit in Florida if Cannon continues to rule against them.

“They’ll be in a position to take her up to the 11th Circuit. And I think the 11th circuit will likely take her off the case,” he said.

Cobb said that Cannon, a Trump appointee, has not been impartial in the case.

“Her incompetence is so gross that I think it clearly creates the perception of impartiality– of partiality, and her attempt to put her thumb on the scale. So, I think that should disqualify her,” he said.

He also noted that many commentators “have tried to be polite about Judge Cannon’s missteps here and suggesting that they relate somehow to her experience or incompetence. I think the evidence of her bias is pretty palpable at this stage of the game.”