Judge Aileen Cannon, who has been managing the Joe Biden Justice Department’s case alleging former President Donald Trump mishandled classified documents, is being attacked by Democrats for postponing a trial date indefinitely. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on federal courts and oversight subcommittee, accuses Cannon of “deliberately slow-walking the case.”
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) says Cannon is “managing this case in a way that is making it highly unlikely that it will be resolved in a timely fashion” – that is, before the presidential election in November, in which Trump is currently the favorite.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) complains he is unsure “whether this judge understands the magnitude or the legal import of this trial.”
Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst not typically sympathetic to Trump, has suggested Biden’s special prosecutor, Jack Smith, appears to be rushing to convict Trump before November. “Just look at Jack Smith’s conduct in this case. The motivating principle behind every procedural request he’s made has been speed, has been getting this trial in before the election,” she observed in December.
However, Smith and his team bear much of the responsibility for the delays. Days before Cannon vacated a May 20 trial date, prosecutors admitted they may have tampered with evidence seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. A month prior, she had to upbraid the prosecution for failing to address arguments raised by the defense multiple times.
When she indefinitely postponed the trial, she cited these “myriad and interconnected” outstanding issues.
