Trump-appointed Federal Judge Aileen Cannon was expected to do it all along and eventually did, tossing the case against him for refusing to return classified documents that he took from the White House. Special counsel Jack Smith, who she decided should not have been appointed in the first place, is now appealing the ruling.
In a brief filed with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Smith says Judge Cannon was also mistaken in ruling that the process used to appoint the Special Counsel was unconstitutional. Smith is appealing Cannon's ruling, asking the 11th Circuit Court to reverse her order to dismiss the case and send it back "for further proceedings." In his brief, the Special Counsel does not ask the court to remove the Trump-appointed judge from the case. Even before her dismissal, Cannon was criticized by legal observers for delays and rulings that favored Trump. If the Appeals court reverses her ruling, many legal observers believe it may also ask Cannon to recuse herself from the case.
Cannon's declaration that the Special Counsel's position was fundamentally unconstitutional "runs counter to decades of rulings by other federal courts upholding the constitutionality of the Special Counsel's office," reports NPR. The cynical if rather obvious view is that she was a partisan appointment with poor qualifications for the job and performed the service expected of her: to shield Trump from legal consquences.
