With US District Judge Aileen Cannon's decision earlier this week to postpone Donald Trump's classified documents trial indefinitely, the chance of a start date ahead of the November election has become more unlikely.
Newsweek noted that the Trump-appointed judge said in her Tuesday, May 7 ruling that "there were eight outstanding substantive pending motions for her to rule on and predicted this will take until at least late July."
Legal expert and Brookings senior fellow Norm Eisen criticized Cannon's ruling, saying, "I'm not surprised, but I am disgusted. Whether she's doing it out of partiality for the former president or is just a lousy jurist, this latest blunder by Judge Cannon takes the cake.
READ MORE: Judge Cannon may have just given Jack Smith an excuse to replace her: Watergate prosecutor
MSNBC's The Weekend co-host and former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele asked former Department of Justice Director of the Office of Public Affairs Anthony Coley about whether or not Cannon's appointment to the Trump case could've possibly been avoided or averted.
"At the end of the day — and I want to be careful because we have immense respect for our jurists and the judges and the trials and the process — but there is such a thing as qualification and capability given the immense importance of a case, and we know the rotation system in Florida just happened to land on her," Steele said.
The former RNC chair asked Coley, "Why didn't the US government, the DOJ say, 'This trial is too important to put in the hands of an inexperienced judge, one. And two, when they didn't do that, but then saw the wheels coming off this — because we all saw where this was going with the delay — that they didn't step in and change up?"
The former DOJ official replied, "The curious case of Aileen George. When people say the fight is fixed, this is the type of stuff they are talking about. You have a woman here who intentionally appears to be dragging her feet. And she is proving herself to appear in my opinion, a MAGA activist in a black robe who has given Trump exactly what he wants, and that is unintentional delay."
READ MORE: 'Truly a disgrace': Legal expert has 'another idea' for Judge Cannon
The Hill noted earlier this week that "Cannon is spending considerable time on issues that some outside observers say other judges likely would have addressed more quickly."
Coley continued, "Some people will say she is an inexperienced judge, that she is up in this satellite facility in Palm Beach County, that she's is dealing with classified documents and that requires special handling. All of that may be accurate. But at the end of the day, she is ignoring settled law, she doesn't appear to have an appreciation for the rules of criminal procedure. And I'll give you an example, Michael: Next month, she is holding a day-long hearing to determine whether or not Jack Smith, the special counsel in the case, has been constitutionally appointed. And as Andrew Weissmann knows, that argument has already been decided. So, she's a MAGA activist. She has a MAGA slip underneath this black robe and her slip is showing.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Legal analyst skewers Trump judge: 'Proving herself' to be a 'MAGA activist in a black robe' www.youtube.com
