Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon faces her 'starkest test yet'

When former special counsel Jack Smith was prosecuting two separate criminal cases against Donald Trump, he dealt with two very different federal judges: Tanya Chutkan with his election interference case, and Trump appointee Aileen Cannon with the Mar-a-Lago/classified documents case.

Chutkan was never suspected of having any type of bias against Smith's election case, whereas Cannon's critics alleged that she had a bias against the classified documents case from the beginning.

According to Newsweek's Jasmine Laws, Cannon "now faces perhaps her starkest neutrality test yet" with the classified documents case.

In an article published on March 31, Laws reports, "Florida-based Judge Cannon may have thought she put Trump's classified documents case to bed last month, when, in a February 23 order, she barred anyone at the Justice Department (DOJ) from 'releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions' from prosecutor Jack Smith's report. However, the ink was barely dry when new revelations emerged last week that pose a fresh headache for Cannon."

Laws reports that the "latest dispute" with Cannon "stems from a March 13 DOJ production to the House Judiciary Committee" that the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D- Maryland) "said included non-public materials covered by Cannon's earlier secrecy rulings in the classified-documents case."

In a late March letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Raskin wrote, "In short, the position of the DOJ appears to be that it can violate Judge Cannon's order and grand jury secrecy whenever it sees an opportunity to smear Jack Smith."

Laws notes, "Judge Cannon, a Trump-appointee, has previously been accused of unfairly making rulings favorable to Trump, such as delaying the trial until after the 2024 election, dismissing the case entirely, stating special counsel Jack Smith's appointment violated the Constitution, and the blocking of Smith's final report. Will Cannon open a contempt inquiry to establish what was leaked and if so, by whom? Her critics will be watching closely."