Aileen Cannon

Ever since Trump appointed her to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in 2020, Aileen Cannon’s tenure as a federal judge has been nothing short of a trainwreck. Cannon is extremely ideologically motivated by her loyalty to Trump, demonstrated by her increasingly unsound and biased rulings in cases involving him. From making egregious trial errors in a 2023 criminal case, to being regularly overruled at the circuit court level, to subjecting her law clerks to abysmal working conditions, Cannon has shown she lacks the requisite competence and temperament to be a federal judge, much less a Supreme Court justice. 

• Showed Extreme Bias Toward Trump. Cannon is infamous for her handling of two cases — one civil and one criminal — involving Trump in a personal capacity. In Trump v. United States, Cannon revoked the FBI’s access to the documents it seized during its search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and granted Trump’s dubious request for a special master to review the seized materials for attorney-client and executive privilege. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit quickly and unanimously overturned Cannon’s orders, stating that she abused her discretion by even exercising jurisdiction over the case. The court held that by doing so, Cannon created “an unprecedented exception in our law for former presidents.”

Less than a year later, Cannon was assigned United States v. Trump, the Department of Justice’s criminal case against Trump related to his alleged mishandling of classified government documents. After failing to recuse herself despite several calls to do so from other federal judges, Cannon made numerous questionable rulings viewed as highly favorable to Trump, including denying the DOJ’s request to keep its potential witness list under seal, delaying a hearing on the Classified Information Proceedings Act for several months, and instructing Trump and the DOJ to craft hypothetical jury instructions regarding the Presidential Records Act. Further, Cannon postponed the trial “indefinitely” less than two weeks before it was set to begin. Ultimately, Cannon granted Trump’s motion to dismiss based on the fringe legal theory that special counsels are always unconstitutional.  

• Severely Abused Her Law Clerks. Despite her relatively brief tenure as a judge, Cannon has already developed a reputation for treating her clerks terribly. Former clerks have accused Cannon of frequently screaming at them, setting impossible deadlines, expecting them to work 100+ hours a week, and exercising control over every aspect of their lives. Her clerks are also expected to work on most weekends and federal holidays, despite Cannon not working on most of those days herself. Unsurprisingly, these horrific working conditions led to several of her law clerks quitting before the end of their terms.