Judge Aileen Cannon is unlikely to be removed from the Ryan Routh gun case, despite her “obvious favoritism” toward Donald Trump, a legal analyst has said.
Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, was reacting to news that Cannon has been appointed to the case of Ryan Routh, who is accused of trying to shoot Donald Trump in Florida.
Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, oversaw his classified documents case and threw out all charges because she said the special prosecutor was illegally appointed. She has now been randomly assigned the Routh case.
Newsweek sought email comment from Cannon’s office on Wednesday.
“I doubt that Cannon would be recused in the Routh case. Cannon’s obvious favoritism toward Trump the politician does not mean her impartiality might reasonably be questioned in the Routh case,” Gillers told Newsweek.
“Whatever she does in that case will not benefit Trump as a candidate,” he added.
Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, agreed that Cannon is unlikely to be removed from the case.
“Aileen Cannon has not shown any inclination to recuse herself, despite widespread concerns about her independence, even from direct cases against the person who appointed her,” he told Newsweek. “So I don’t think she will recuse herself from a far more remote appearance of conflict in a case against an attempted assassin.”
The Department of Justice charged 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh with possession of a firearm while a former felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
Routh allegedly intended to shoot Donald Trump at a Palm Beach golf course owned by the former president on September 15, and more charges are pending.
While Routh did not fire any shots on September 15, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle sticking out of a fence at the golf course and opened fire. Routh was later arrested after police stopped his car.
Kristy Greenberg, an MSNBC legal analyst and former Manhattan prosecutor, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday that Cannon will be far more efficient in dealing with Routh’s case than she was in dealing with Trump’s classified documents case.
“Watch Judge Cannon use basic case management skills to move Trump’s attempted assassination case along. It was never incompetence. She purposely took the bait from Trump to delay the classified documents case every single time,” Greenberg wrote.
Trump was facing 40 federal charges in Cannon’s court over his alleged handling of sensitive materials seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving the White House in January 2021. He was also accused of obstructing efforts by federal authorities to retrieve them.
The Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty and has said the case is part of a political witch hunt. Cannon dismissed all charges, arguing that special counsel Jack Smith was illegally appointed.
In her dismissal of the charges on July 15, Cannon noted that there is no constitutional backing for appointing special counsel Smith, a “private citizen,” as a Department of Justice prosecutor in charge of all Trump’s federal indictments.
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