ACCORDING TO SOME in his inner circle, Donald Trump's most effective and not-so-secret weapon in his 2024 effort to reclaim the White House is a federal judge he appointed in Florida.
Judge Aileen Cannon is presiding over one of Trump's two federal criminal cases — the classified documents case in the Southern District of Florida. In August 2022, the FBI raided Trump's Florida club and estate, Mar-a-Lago, following his sustained refusal to return to the government a trove of classified documents he was hoarding at the club. This bizarre scandal led to a criminal case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Since last year, Trump's attorneys have flooded the court with a range of motions and efforts to delay the trial. Instead of handling those matters quickly, Cannon has let motions languish for weeks without decision while holding what some experts see as unnecessary hearings to debate other issues, pushing a trial date further.
Cannon went even further last week with a ruling that tossed the May 20 trial date, postponing it indefinitely in order to first deal with what she said were “myriad and interconnected pre-trial and [classified information evidentiary] issues remaining and forthcoming.”