Aileen Cannon Just Gave Donald Trump a 'Gift': Legal Analyst

Judge Aileen Cannon has continued to do "extraordinary favors" for former President Donald Trump, giving him a "gift" in his classified document case, according to legal analyst Glenn Kirschner.

Cannon is Florida-based federal judge who was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020, and is currently overseeing the federal criminal case brought against him by the Department of Justice (DOJ) over his mishandling of sensitive classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort residence. The indictment leveled a total of 37 counts against him, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, all of which Trump has pleaded not guilty to, arguing that he had a right to retain the materials after he left the White House.

Throughout the case, Cannon has been accused by legal experts and observers of making decisions and rulings that have been unusually beneficial towards Trump, with many accusing her of favoring the man who appointed her to her current position. In a video shared on his personal YouTube channel on Saturday, Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney and frequent critic of the former president, said that Cannon had recently given Trump another "gift" in the case.

On Thursday, Trump's legal team presented oral arguments for his motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that one of the statutes that he is charged under, the 1917 Espionage Act, is unconstitutional. Cannon ultimately denied the motion, but as Kirschner pointed out on Saturday, she did so "without prejudice," meaning that Trump could potentially raise the issue at any other point down the line.

In a post to X, formerly Twitter, in which he shared the video, Kirschner described this move as a "gift to Trump, giving him permission to raise his motion to dismiss his espionage crimes at a time when [special counsel] Jack Smith COULD NOT APPEAL THE DISMISSAL."

"Talk about doing an enormous favor for Donald Trump," Kirschner said in his video. "This is another reason, on top of several that have come before, why Judge Cannon and her impartiality might reasonably be questioned, such that Jack Smith should file a motion to recuse her, remove her from the case."

He continued: "Judge Cannon is telling us what she intends to do here. I mean, she dismissed this in the most off-handed manner, no legal authority, no case law precedence supporting this, what she just did here. This is garbage, this is judicial word salad, this is nonsense. This works to Donald Trump's advantage, not to the advantage of justice or we the people."

Speaking to Newsweek on Sunday about the ruling, Dave Aronberg, the state attorney in Florida's Palm Beach County and legal expert, concurred with Kirschner's view that Cannon's ruling could be disastrous for Smith later on in the trial.

"Jack Smith won only a temporary victory, and it could turn into a much bigger loss down the road," he said. "By denying Trump's Motion to Dismiss 'without prejudice,' it means that Trump can try again in the middle of trial. If Judge Cannon grants Trump's motion during trial after the jury has been chosen, then Smith cannot appeal the dismissal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. That's because it would be 'double jeopardy' in violation of the 5th Amendment. Jack Smith would have been better off if Judge Cannon ruled against him now, rather than risk the possibility of a more devastating ruling later."

The classified documents case trial is currently scheduled to begin on May 20, but Cannon is expected to announce a delay soon. Some observers fear that she will ultimately acquiesce to the Trump team's desire to push the trial until after the general election in November where Trump is the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee. Smith's office has requested a July start date should the current one be delayed.

Update 03/17/24, 5:02 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Aronberg.