By Dan Mangan
The Florida federal judge overseeing the criminal classified documents case against former President Donald Trump has been the target of more than 1,000 complaints in just one week this month raising allegations of her handling of the case, a top appeals court judge revealed in an order.
The complaints against Judge Aileen Cannon have come to light amid renewed criticism by some legal observers and Trump opponents that she is slow-walking the criminal case against the former president to ensure it does not go to trial before the presidential election.
“Many of the complaints” against Cannon filed with the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals “request that the Chief Circuit Judge remove her from the classified-documents case and reassign the case to a different judge,” Chief Judge William Pryor wrote in a May 22 order posted on the appeal court’s website.
And “many of the complaints against Judge Cannon also question the correctness of her rulings or her delays in issuing rulings in the case,” Pryor wrote.
Those complaints filed since May 16 “appear to be part of an orchestrated campaign,” according to Pryor, whose appellate court reviews cases arising from federal district courts in Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
Public critics of Cannon have noted her delays in ruling on multiple pending motions, granting hearings to Trump’s lawyers on legal issues that might otherwise be easily addressed through court filings, and criticizing filings by special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors.
Trump, who appointed Cannon to the bench, is charged in the case with crimes related to withholding classified government records at his Mar-a-Lago club residence in Palm Beach, Florida, after he left the White House, and trying to hide them from officials who sought their recovery.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who has pleaded not guilty in that case, on Thursday was convicted by a state court jury in New York of 34 felony counts related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Pryor, in his May 22 order about the complaints, wrote that he “has considered and dismissed four of those orchestrated complaints as merits-related and as based on allegations lacking sufficient evidence to raise an inference that misconduct has occurred.”
He also wrote that neither he nor the appeals court’s Judicial Council has the authority to remove Cannon from the case under the Rules for Judicial-Conduct and Judicial-Disability Proceedings.
“Although many of the complaints allege an improper motive in delaying the case, the allegations are speculative and unsupported by any evidence,” Pryor wrote.
“The Complaints also do not establish that Judge Cannon was required to recuse herself from the case because she was appointed by then-President Trump.”
The chief judge also wrote that before May 16, “multiple Complaints of Judicial Misconduct or Disability” were filed against Cannon, who sits in Fort Pierce, Florida, federal court, “raising allegations in connection” with Trump’s criminal case.
“Some of those complaints have been acted upon, and others will be acted upon in due course,” Pryor wrote, without revealing the nature of those actions.
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This article originally appeared here and was republished with permission.
