A retired judge cast aspersion on District Judge Aileen Cannon for stalling the trial of Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
Cannon paused the trial indefinitely on May 7, less than two weeks before its previously scheduled start date, because she had too many outstanding motions and classified issues to resolve, and retired New York Supreme Court Judge Diane Kiesel told CNN that she didn't understand why the Florida-based federal judge would entertain Trump's challenge of special counsel Jack Smith's appointment.
"It's quite unusual and somewhat surprising, the issue of the appropriate or the legality of appointing a special counsel seems to have been put to rest a long time ago," Kiesel said. "There was a special counsel appointed during the Watergate investigation, which is what, 50 years ago now, and actually the concept of a special counsel goes back to president [James] Garfield in the 1880s, so the idea that she is entertaining something that has been put to rest while ago is certainly puzzling."
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Cannon has been accused of slow-walking the trial to push it out past the election so Trump, if he wins, could appoint an attorney general to end the prosecution altogether, and Kiesel agreed that criticism was fair.
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"I'm loathe to call her biased, I don't know the woman at all, but let's just look at it from a legal aspect," Kiesel said. "Okay, the first thing you always do as a judge is you make sure you have a trial date set. She doesn't even have a trial date. That invites nothing happening, if you will, whether she's doing this because she's inexperienced, whether she's doing this because she's not confident in her decisions, whether she's purposely slow-walking it, who knows? The result, however, is absolutely nothing is happening here and it's subjecting her to a lot of very valid criticism."
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