The decision by Aileen Cannon, U.S. District Judge from the Southern District of Florida, to grant Donald Trump’s request to name a special master to assess documents seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8 has driven the liberal media, bloggers and sundry “legal scholars” up the wall, with the claim that Cannon is clearly biased in Trump’s favor—he nominated her to her judgeship—if not an outright fascist and legal incompetent. The fear is apparently that the ruling gives Trump time to pursue his political goals, including running for office. Cannon’s membership in the right-wing Federalist Society is being cited as proof of her loyalty to Trump.
In its Sept. 6 coverage, Bloomberg refers to her ruling as “sweeping” in nature, because it pauses the Justice Department’s criminal investigation until the special master can review the 13,000 documents in the DOJ’s possession and also make sure that Trump’s rights were protected when the FBI executed its search warrant. Among those howling with rage are sleazy former prosecutor Andrew Weissman, who was part of Robert Mueller’s Get Trump task force (known as Mueller’s “pit bull") with a known record of prosecutorial misconduct. Now with MSNBC, he claims that Cannon’s ruling is “nutty” and “lawless.” Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute argued that Cannon “engaged herself in obstruction of justice” simply by taking the case, Newsweek reported.
One of the most rabid attacks came from Salon’s “senior writer” Amanda Marcotte, who charges that Cannon’s ruling demonstrates without a doubt that Biden’s speech last week that MAGA people were “semi-fascist” is right on the mark. Headline: “Trump judge’s ruling in Mar-a-Lago case proves Biden was right: MAGA is fascism.” She writes that Cannon “let loose with a decision breathtaking in its disregard for both the law and the judicial branch’s legitimacy,” adding that Cannon is obviously totally corrupt, and that’s why Trump nominated her to the bench.
Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson worried to CNN that the delay in the DOJ’s criminal investigation caused by the naming of a special master would be especially problematic were Trump to announce his candidacy for president while the investigation were still ongoing. “We’re running up to the midterms and then we’re running up to the presidential elections,” she said. Trump is likely to announce his candidacy and will then claim the government is going after him because he’s an opponent. “It’s still a delay that could change things,” Levinson complained.
