Cannon's colleagues implored her to give Trump case to more experienced judge: N.Y. Times

Judge Aileen Cannon brushed aside recommendations to hand off Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago classified documents case to a more experienced judge when the assignment first landed in her lap.

Two more experience colleagues on the federal bench in Florida, including Cecilia M. Altonaga — the chief judge in the Southern District of Florida — urged Cannon to pass on the complicated, high-profile case to another jurist, according to two sources briefed on the discussions who spoke to the New York Times.

The Trump-appointed judge instead decided to keep the case despite having little trial experience, and her assignment immediately raised concerns about her impartiality after she previously intervened in ways that aided the ex-president in the criminal investigation that ultimately led to his indictment and drew a sharp rebuke from a conservative appeals court panel.

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"The extraordinary and previously undisclosed effort by Judge Cannon’s colleagues to persuade her to step aside adds another dimension to the increasing criticism of how she has gone on to handle the case," the Times reported.

"She has broken, according to lawyers who operate there, with a general practice of federal judges in the Southern District of Florida of delegating some pretrial motions to a magistrate — in this instance, Judge Bruce E. Reinhart," the newspaper added. "While he is subordinate to her, Judge Reinhart is an older and much more experienced jurist. In 2022, he was the one who signed off on an F.B.I. warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club and residence in Florida, for highly sensitive government files that Mr. Trump kept after leaving office."