Step down from this case?

2 peers urged Judge Aileen Cannon to step down from this case, NYT reports

From CNN's Hannah Rabinowitz

Two federal judges in south Florida urged District Judge Aileen Cannon to forgo overseeing the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump when she was first assigned the classified documents case in 2023, according to a report from The New York Times last week.

The judges, one of whom was the district’s Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga, suggested Cannon decline to oversee the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith and allow another judge to govern the case, the Times wrote, citing two people briefed on the conversations.

Cannon is still overseeing the case, which has seen a multitude of delays and increasing scrutiny.

Altonaga’s chambers declined to comment on the report to CNN. The Times did not identify the second judge who reportedly contacted Cannon.

At the time Cannon was assigned the high-profile criminal case, she had already faced public backlash – and a major reversal by an appeals court – over her handling of the lawsuit Trump brought challenging the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022, when agents found hundreds of classified documents scattered about the property.

Since then, Cannon has repeatedly raised eyebrows among legal scholars for her approach. Critics of the judge say that she has slowed the pace of the case to a near standstill, making a pre-election trial essentially out of reach.