A dozen Senate Democrats voted in 2020 to confirm Judge Aileen Cannon as U.S. District judge for the Southern District of Florida. Now she is overseeing a federal trial in Miami against the man who nominated her: Donald Trump.
The 12 Democrats who crossed the aisle to support her say they have few concerns about Judge Cannon’s impartiality in handling the 37 charges against the former president for his alleged willful retention of classified documents and obstruction of justice.
Nearly all of those Senate Democrats explained their confirmation votes to The Washington Times as a show of bipartisanship for a qualified judicial nominee. They did so despite liberal legal voices and Democrats who did not support her confirmation saying she’s got a conflict of interest.
“Unlike some people, who will adhere strictly to political guidelines in voting for confirmation, I don’t do that. I try to look at more than just a party affiliation, and that’s why I ended up voting for her,” said Sen. Tom Carper, Delaware Democrat. “It’s not my job, [and] it’s not the job of the Senate, to determine what judges are going to be assigned to that particular case.”
Fellow Delawarean Sen. Chris Coons, a close Democratic ally to President Biden, noted that Judge Cannon’s nomination by then-President Trump was endorsed by the American Bar Association. The ABA rated Judge Cannon “qualified by a substantial majority” of its members and “well qualified” by a minority.
“We have to make a decision on whether or not to vote for a judge based on what we know about them then, not knowledge about what they might do sometime in the future,” Mr. Coons said. “Judge Cannon … was rated as qualified by the ABA, was a federal prosecutor [and] was making progress in terms of diversity goals for the district courts in Florida.”
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The point of concern for other Senate Democrats stems from rulings favorable to Mr. Trump made by Judge Cannon last year following the FBI’s raid and seizure of documents from the former president’s home and office at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Judge Cannon granted Mr. Trump’s request for the appointment of a third-party special master to review the alleged top-secret materials recovered from Mar-a-Lago and blocked federal prosecutors’ access to the documents.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit later ruled in favor of the Justice Department’s appeal and lifted the block. The three-judge panel wrote that “the law is clear” and Judge Cannon “improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction.”
“I am concerned,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who did not vote to confirm Judge Cannon. “She was a Trump appointee. She was overruled by the appellate court in one of her earlier rulings. She’s back in charge of this case again.”
In addition to Mr. Carper and Mr. Coons, the Democrats who backed Judge Cannon in her confirmation vote just days after the 2020 election included Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Dianne Feinstein of California, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Doug Jones of Alabama.
Mr. Leahy and Mr. Jones are no longer in Congress.
“These allegations are extremely serious, and nobody’s above the law, including President Trump,” Ms. Cortez Masto said. “I trust the prosecutor and law enforcement and our system of justice to bring this case forward and do the right thing.”
There is no guarantee Judge Cannon will see the case to its fruition, which could last years and go beyond the 2024 election. The Justice Department could seek to have Judge Cannon recuse herself from the case, a move special counsel Jack Smith has not taken but that some Democrats have advocated.
Mr. Kaine was an outlier on the Trump-nominated judge. He told the Times he worried about her favoring the 2024 Republican presidential candidate but suggested the 11th Circuit’s previous ruling against her will remind Judge Cannon to tread carefully.
“I have some anxiety about it. But I also believe the 11th Circuit is a good circuit,” said Mr. Kaine, who clerked for an 11th Circuit judge in Georgia from 1983 to 1984. “When the appeals court kind of sends you a message, most judges tend to conform. I don’t have any reason to believe that will not be the case.”
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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