A former Florida judge said U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon had mishandled former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case from the jump and scolded her for her “sheer incompetence” after added delays to a case where the trial has already been postponed indefinitely.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, tweaked the court schedule to include a hearing on prosecutors’ gag order request and delayed other hearings, such as whether special counsels have the authority to prosecute a case.
She’s also allowing third-party “friends of the court” to come to the former president’s defense in a hearing on June 21, a move that legal experts say is extremely unusual.
Jeff Swartz, a former Miami-Dade County Court judge, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Wednesday that he can come up with no reason for the delays other than that Cannon is purposely avoiding ruling on certain matters and delaying the trial “as long as she possibly can.”
“If she is that ignorant of how to handle these matters, then she doesn’t belong on the bench,” said Swartz of the court schedule.
“If she’s doing it because she’s lazy, then she doesn’t belong on the bench. If she’s doing it just to delay, then she doesn’t belong on the bench.”
He added that Cannon won’t “rule on anything” because she knows if there’s an appeal on anything she rules on, the 11th Circuit would have the ability to remove her from the case.
“And I’m going to use the words of — of the minority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell when he was describing another judge candidate just recently and said that that judge had distinguished herself with sheer incompetence,” he said.
“And I think I would use the same words to describe Judge Cannon.”
