U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's regular clashes with the prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case are "unprofessional" and far beyond what a typical judge would let happen in their courtroom, former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Salon's Marina Villenueve.
This comes after a series of hearings in which Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge who has come under controversy for dragging out the case past the election, told the prosecutor, David Harbach, "I don't appreciate your tone," and rebuked various complaints.
"They're dealing with a judge who is unlike any other judge," Rahmani told Villenueve. "She is entertaining some ridiculous arguments. She's allowed outsiders who really have nothing to do with the case, to submit briefs and to argue. No judge would allow that."
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Normally attorneys do their utmost not to say anything to anger a judge, said Rahmani — but in this case, Cannon has pushed special counsel Jack Smith's legal team to the breaking point. And although Cannon suggested she might order Harbach to be replaced, his behavior in court was not out of bounds.
"Judges have a lot of discretion, but to order a particular attorney off the case because of what I would consider advocacy, that's something that will probably get reversed," said Rahmani. "There's nothing that has crossed the line, in my opinion. And if anything, the judge herself has been unprofessional and kind of criticizing the prosecution in a way that, again, most of the judges would not."
In addition to delaying the case indefinitely and clashing with the prosecutors, Cannon also appears skeptical of instituting a gag order against Trump for pushing conspiracy theories about FBI agents, and previously had to be rebuked by a higher court, including two other Trump appointees, for interfering with the FBI's counterintelligence investigation by handing over the documents to a special master to review them for privilege.
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