Judge Aileen Cannon just caved
To hear the media tell the story, Judge Aileen Cannon has ruled in favor of Donald Trump so many times, in such blatant fashion, that the trial has now been delayed to the year 3000. In reality, while Cannon’s rulings have frequently been improper (and in some cases incoherent), she hasn’t been able to do nearly as much to help Trump as she’d probably like.
That’s because there are no magic wands. Cannon knows that there are strict limits to what she can get away with, or else the 11th Circuit will have grounds for taking the case away from her. It’s why, for instance, she recently ruled against Trump’s request that the case be dismissed. Trump even made a point of attending that hearing, presumably so he could celebrate when the case was thrown out. But in reality nothing works that way.
Now Cannon is caving again. While she had earlier ruled that the names of government witnesses should be released, she’s now backing down and reversing her position. This is good news, because it means Trump won’t be able to get a head start on harassing the witnesses against him. Of course Trump’s attempts at intimidating his legal rivals never do end up helping him anyway.
But the story is that Aileen Cannon is once again backing down, for fear of having the case taken away from her. We’ll see if she also backs down on the other bad rulings that Jack Smith recently called her out for. If not, the case will presumably end up being taken away from her.
