Speculation Flying That Trump-appointed Judge Could Be Removed from Bench

Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Donald Trump, is back in the news again.

Cannon has made some rulings that have liberal legal experts up in arms, and her latest has them thinking that Special Counsel Jack Smith will request to have her removed from the case.

Cannon sent options for jury instructions in the Trump case, and legal experts are going ballistic over them.

Crazy Instructions

Cannon offered two sets of instruction guidelines to Smith and Trump’s attorneys.

The first option read:

“In a prosecution of a former president for allegedly retaining documents in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(e), a jury is permitted to examine a record retained by a former president in his/her personal possession at the end of his/her presidency and make a factual finding as to whether the government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that it is personal or presidential using the definitions set forth in the Presidential Records Act (PRA).”

The second instruction read:

“A president has sole authority under the PRA to categorize records as personal or presidential during his/her presidency. Neither a court nor a jury is permitted to make or review such a categorization decision.

“Although there is no formal means in the PRA by which a president is to make that categorization, an outgoing president’s decision to exclude what he/she considers to be personal records from presidential records transmitted to the National Archives and Records Administration constitutes a president’s categorization of those records as personal under the PRA.”

Florida state attorney Dave Aronberg believes that these instructions may finally push Smith over the edge.

Aronberg stated, “My head is spinning because this is sort of an incomprehensible order by Judge Cannon.

“First off, she’s asking for jury instructions on a case that will not be heard before the November election, and so what is the rush?”

He later added, “And then she set forth two different hypotheticals for the parties to engage in when it comes to jury instructions, but these jury instructions are really favorable to Donald Trump.

“Essentially, you have two choices, Jack: heads, Donald Trump wins, and tails, you lose. So either way, this is just something that Jack Smith is not going to be able to take.

“He’s going to have to go to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals … and try and get this whole thing changed unless Judge Cannon will do it herself.

“And eventually this could lead to Jack Smith pushing the red button to try and get her disqualified from the case. For a lot of people, it’s been a long time coming.”

Cannon has been getting crushed in the media for every ruling issued, even having been blistered by the Appeals Court after one of her decisions was overturned.

If Cannon does get removed from this case, it would be an utter disaster for Trump, as she has been the only “friendly” judge that Trump has encountered in these federal indictments.

If he loses her and draws a liberal judge to replace Cannon, it will be game over for Trump.

The only solace I can see from Trump’s perspective is that if Cannon gets removed, it may just delay the case until well past the general election, and that would be considered a huge win for Trump because the case would not impact him in the presidential election.