US: Aileen Cannon is unlikely to be removed from the Ryan Routh gun case despite her “obvious bias” toward Trump
US: Despite her “obvious favoritism” for Donald Trump, Judge Aileen Cannon is unlikely to be removed from the Ryan Routh gun case, according to a legal commentator.
New York University law professor Stephen Gillers responded to the announcement that Cannon has been assigned to Ryan Routh’s case. Routh is charged with attempting to shoot Donald Trump in Florida.
Overseeing his case involving sensitive materials, Cannon—nominated by Trump—threw out all charges on the grounds that the special prosecutor was improperly constituted. Now the Routh case has been assigned to her at random.
“Cannon’s recusal in the Routh case seems unlikely. “Gilters told Newsweek that Cannon’s blatant favoritism toward Trump the politician does not mean her objectivity might be reasonably questioned in the Routh case.”
“Whatever she does in that case will not benefit Trump as a candidate,” he said.
Law scholar Greg Germain of Syracuse University in New York said that it is unlikely that Cannon would be dropped from the lawsuit.
“Aileen Cannon has not shown any inclination to recuse herself, despite widespread concerns about her independence, even from direct cases against the person who appointed her,” he said to Newsweek. “So I don’t think she will recuse herself from a far more remote appearance of conflict in a case against an attempted assassin.”
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was charged by the Department of Justice with possessing a handgun while a felon and possessing a pistol with its serial number obliterated.
On September 15, Routh reportedly planned to shoot the former president at a golf facility in Palm Beach. Additional accusations are still pending.
On September 15, Routh did not fire a shot, but an agent of the Secret Service saw a rifle protruding from a fence at the golf course and opened fire. Police pulled over Routh’s automobile and subsequently placed him under arrest.
Former Manhattan prosecutor and MSNBC legal commentator Kristy Greenberg said on X, previously Twitter, on Tuesday that Cannon would handle Routh’s case considerably more skillfully than she handled Trump’s case involving secret information.
“Observe how Judge Cannon advances the Trump attempted assassination case by using fundamental case management techniques. It was never a lack of ability. Every time Trump tried to drag out the matter involving the confidential information, she deliberately fell for his hook,” Greenberg wrote.
Following his departure from the White House in January 2021, Trump was charged on 40 federal counts in Cannon’s court over his alleged handling of classified documents taken from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. In addition, he was charged with impeding federal agents’ attempts to recover them.
The Republican front-runner for president has entered a not guilty plea and claimed that the investigation is a political witch hunt. Cannon claimed that Jack Smith, the special counsel, had been appointed unlawfully and dropped all charges.
Cannon pointed out that there is no constitutional support for designating Smith, a “private citizen,” as special counsel and leading the Department of Justice’s prosecution of all of Trump’s federal indictments when she dismissed the charges on July 15.
