Aileen Cannon Overseeing Trump Case Raises '3 Enormous Concerns': Kirschner

Judge Aileen Cannon could present "three enormous concerns" for officials handling Donald Trump's classified documents case, according to legal analyst Glenn Kirschner.

Trump became the first former president in United States history to face federal criminal charges last week, when a grand jury voted to indict him on dozens of charges stemming from the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. Among the 37 counts in the indictment are 31 counts of willfully retaining documents containing sensitive national defense information, including "information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its Allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack."

Trump was arraigned at a federal court in Miami on Tuesday where he pleaded not guilty. Despite mounting evidence, he has consistently claimed his innocence in all of the legal battles that he is currently facing.

Aside from the indictment itself and its historic nature, significant conversation has also been generated about Judge Cannon, who was assigned to oversee Trump's federal trial. Cannon was nominated for the position by Trump and appointed to the bench in the final days of his presidency after he had already lost the 2020 election.

Cannon was at the center of a considerable legal controversy earlier in the classified documents case after she made a ruling that was deemed inordinately preferential to the former president and later overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals as unlawful. Many have since speculated that she will continue to rule in ways that will benefit Trump, leading to calls for her to recuse herself from the case, which she has given no indication that she will do.

During a Saturday interview with journalist and YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, Kirschner, a veteran federal prosecutor and legal analyst specializing in the many cases facing Trump, put forward three potential problems that Cannon could cause for the upcoming trial.

"First of all, because this is unprecedented, we've never tried a criminal former president of the United States for his crimes before, we've never had to confront the issue about whether the appointed federal judge or the assigned federal judge is conflicted out if that is the president, if the defendant in the case is the president that appointed the judge," Kirschner said.

He further argued that, since the law requires a judge to recuse themselves for even the appearance of a conflict of interest, any judge should do so if the defendant in a case is the president who appointed them.

Secondly, Kirschner said that Cannon lacks the experience to oversee such an unprecedented and high-stakes trial, given that she has reportedly only overseen short, run-of-the-mill trials so far. Lastly, the legal analyst put forward the federal law requiring a judge to disqualify oneself under certain circumstances, as he discussed previously.

Newsweek reached out to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida via email for comment.