U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon is continuously straying from legal principle in her handling of Donald Trump's classified documents case after she rebuked special counsel Jack Smith for alerting her to the former president's motion to delay his Washington, D.C. federal case, legal experts argued. That order, coupled with her signal last week that she may further delay the trial in line with the defense's request, has raised alarms for former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, who described Cannon's criticism of prosecutors as "off base."
"Many people have a sense Judge Cannon has her thumb on the scale for Trump," Vance said on X, formerly Twitter. "Perhaps Judge Cannon needs to remember what this case is about: alleged crimes regarding the treatment of highly classified documents by a former president — allegations that are backed up by evidence collected during execution of a court-ordered search warrant," Vance wrote in her newsletter. "Instead it seems to have devolved into an inexplicable grudge match with the Special Counsel's office on her part."
