Jack Smith 'chess move' could place Judge Cannon under new scrutiny: expert
Jack Smith could make a strategic move that would place the Trump-appointed Judge Cannon on higher scrutiny in connection with her rulings in the ex-president's criminal prosecution over sensitive documents allegedly hoarded away at Mar-a-Lago, a former prosecutor said on Saturday.
Charles Coleman, a former Brooklyn, New York, prosecutor, appeared on MSNBC and was asked about Judge Cannon's recent scheduling moves that some say are designed to delay the former president's criminal trial beyond the 2024 election.
"There is something else, I want to take a look at the tweet from our MSNBC colleague Andrew Weissmann. He says, 'Judge Cannon's bias is showing and Jack Smith has to be weighing whether, when and how to seek her reversal by the court of appeals and her removal.' Is there an option or process for prosecutors to seek her removal?" the host asked.
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"There is. And while I do respect my colleague, Andrew Weissmann's tweet and opinion, I don't necessarily think it's risen to the level where that's likely going to happen," Coleman replied. "I think that, even if Jack Smith were to do so, that's more of a chess move than anything else. At the point that he is moving to ask the court of appeals for her removal, if it's not granted, there's still going to be an eye placed on Judge Cannon her decisions, and she's aware of that."
He added:
"That's more of a strategy thing than it is a practical thing in terms of having her removed. You can in a case where a judge has showed themselves to be incredibly biased towards a particular party seek to have them removed if they're not going to recuse themselves. I think one of the chief arguments in this case would be, number one, that Judge Cannon is a Trump appointee. Number two, the fact that she's an appointee and she's repeatedly shown herself to give rulings, one of which, for example, during the investigation, pre-indictment, she was even reversed on, in favor of Donald Trump, it does tend to show that there's a certain level of bias there that the public should be concerned about."