Former President Donald Trump is reportedly considering Judge Aileen Cannon to be his attorney general, ABC News reported, putting someone who has taken overt steps to ensure Trump faces no consequences for his illegal actions at the helm of the Justice Department.
Cannon is the Trump-appointed federal judge who deliberately sabotaged special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents case against Trump, which alleged that Trump improperly retained classified documents from his time in the White House, and then obstructed justice during the federal government's attempts to get the documents back. She absurdly ruled in July that Smith's appointment as special counsel wasn't legal and thus dismissed the case.
That followed a number of other rulings Cannon made to slow-walk the case so that it would not take place before the election, which could have hurt Trump’s chances in his comeback presidential bid.
Experts say the classified documents case was cut and dry, and that Trump faced the most jeopardy of conviction amid his bevy of both state and federal indictments.
Cannon’s actions were so egregious that lawyers and good government groups said she should be removed from the case altogether.
“At every possible opportunity, Judge Cannon has demonstrated her apparent bias in favor of Donald Trump,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington President Noah Bookbinder said. In September, his group filed an amicus brief calling for her removal from the case. “She has at every stage made this case more difficult than the law mandated, and she then dismissed it on largely unprecedented grounds, delivering a significant win to Trump. Should the Court reverse her decision, it must also ensure that the case is reassigned to allow it to proceed fairly and expeditiously and to help restore the credibility of the federal court system.”
Having Cannon as head of the DOJ would be terrifying. She has proven that she is willing to disregard legal precedent in order to protect Trump, and could play a role in dismissing the other federal indictment Trump faces for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Former President Donald Trump listens to White House chief of staff John Kelly, right, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Oct. 10, 2018.
What’s more, Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly came out on the record on Tuesday to warn that Trump is a fascist and would rule like a dictator if elected to a second term. And it’s not likely that Cannon would stop Trump from acting on his worst impulses—including his threats to prosecute his detractors and to use the military against American citizens.
Even conservatives are aghast at the fact that Cannon is being considered.
“If this is true and it's not just a member of Trump's team freelancing, this looks like a pretty transparent attempt to buy off Aileen Cannon with a Cabinet nomination,” Republican consultant Liz Mair wrote in a post on X.
“This is not okay. Even the appearance of buying a judge with an appointment is corrosive,” right-leaning Washington Post Columnist Megan McArdle wrote on X.
ABC News reported that Cannon’s name appeared in a document titled "Transition Planning: Legal Principals," which laid out names of people to consider for roles in the DOJ, U.S. attorneys’ offices, and the White House counsel’s office.
Aside from Cannon, Trump is also allegedly considering several questionable options for attorney general. One is Jeffrey Clark, the former Trump Justice Department official who was indicted in Georgia for his efforts to help Trump steal the election in 2020. There’s also lawyer Mike Davis, who promised a “three-week reign of terror” and to “rain hell on Washington, D.C.” Davis also said he would indict President Joe Biden, detain “a lot of people” in Guantanamo Bay, and help pardon Jan. 6 insurrectionists if chosen as AG.
Lord help us all.
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