Aileen Cannon, a Colombian judge for the southern district of Florida, is in the eye of the storm for having authorized an independent expert Monitor documents seized by FBI agents during a search of the Florida home of former US President Donald Trump.
Cannon is in charge of the lawsuit filed by Trump against the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for the search of Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Palm Beach (Florida), on August 8 in search of official documents that he took with him when he left the White House.
(Also read: Judge decides that independent expert supervise documents seized from Trump)
Trump’s lawyers had asked Judge Cannon for the designation of the “special master”, as this figure is called in English, claiming that it would provide “confidence” to the investigation of the official documents that the former president kept in his Palm Beach mansion.
Judge Aileen Cannon, of the Southern District of Florida, ruled in favor of this request and ordered that the expert be in charge of reviewing the seized assets, managing the claims of privilege invoked in this regard, making recommendations and evaluating the claims for the return of assets.
But the judge faces strong controversy because she was appointed by the former president himself. This is the profile of the Colombian judge and the criticism against her for the decision in the process.
(Also: Trump team reiterates request for the Government not to review seized material)
Who is Aileen Cannon?
Aileen Cannon is a 41-year-old lawyer born in Cali, Colombia. According to the Univisión newspaper, Cannon is the daughter of Mercedes Cubas, a Cuban exile, and Michael Cannon, a man from Indiana, USA.
According to him Miami Herald, Cannon was born in Cali but raised in Miami, Florida, along with her sister.
He graduated, says the media, from the University of Michigan and spent time in Spain before returning to the United States to continue practicing his profession.
(Keep reading: Donald Trump: they publish the inventory of the documents found in his residence)
miami herald It states that Cannon “clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Des Moines, Iowa, and then took a job with the prominent Washington law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.”
He was also a federal prosecutor in Miami, where he was part of the felony section and then the conviction and sentence appeals section. She then transferred to Fort Pierce.
Difficult to understand justice Aileen Cannon (below photo) ruling for “special master” when federal law is very explicit on handling of federal documents…especially highly classified documents on US & foreign countries’ nuclear weapons. https://t.co/y1OEC86bS3 pic.twitter.com/SD48AIdMOT
— Yamato Masahiro (@MiyakoJima72815) September 10, 2022
The controversy over his decision
Cannon now faces strong controversy because it was Trump himself who nominated her as a federal judge. According to miami heraldMarco Rubio’s office contacted her in 2019 to see if she was interested in applying for the position.
After the tests, former President Donald Trump nominated her in April 2020 and was confirmed by the Senate in November.
For her critics, according to the US media, Cannon had to have recused herself, taking into account that she had been nominated by Trump himself, and transferred the case to the office that first approved the FBI raid on the residence of Mar- a-Lake.
(You can see: ‘I will not be silenced’: Trump strongly criticizes the Biden administration)
Other critics, such as former prosecutor William Bar, have said that Cannon should not have allowed an independent expert in the investigation, since the request was not relevant.
Despite this, those close to Cannon affirm that this judge does not resolve their cases in a partisan manner.
According to other media, it is not the first time that Trump has tried to find Cannon to bring a case against him.
“Earlier this year, a federal judge presiding over a lawsuit brought by Trump against Hillary Clinton in Florida suggested that the former president had actively sought out Cannon to oversee the caseimplying that Trump thought he would receive more favorable treatment from her,” the Miami Herald.
(Also: Donald Trump: former president accused of hiding classified documents)
And it is that in his decision, Cannon established that the Department of Justice cannot continue reviewing the seized material or use it in the framework of the investigation until that expert does not finish his analysis or until a new court order.
The Department of Justice had previously indicated that the appointment of this expert was unnecessary, since a team had selected the documents that could be covered by the attorney-client privilege, and that said figure would delay the criminal investigation carried out by the Government.
As the process progresses, Cannon receives praise from supporters of the former president and criticism from his opponents.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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