Trumper Judge Found to Have Violated Ethics Rules

 Well, well well.  It looks as if Trumper judge Aileen Cannon is a serial offender of ethics rules. ProPublica is reporting that Aileen Mercedes Cannon repeatedly failed to disclose her attendance at right-wing junkets.

Cannon went to an event in Arlington, Va. honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, according to documents obtained from the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University. At a lecture and private dinner, she sat among members of Scalia’s family, fellow Federalist Society members and more than 30 conservative federal judges. Organizers billed the event as “an excellent opportunity to connect with judicial colleagues.”

A 2006 rule, intended to shine a light on judges’ attendance at paid seminars that could pose conflicts or influence decisions, requires them to file disclosure forms for such trips within 30 days and make them public on the court’s website.

It’s not the first time she has failed to fully comply with the rule.  In 2021 and 2022, Cannon took weeklong trips to the luxurious Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, for legal colloquiums sponsored by George Mason, which named its law school for Scalia thanks to $30 million in gifts that conservative judicial kingmaker Leonard Leo helped organize.

Cannon’s failure to disclose invitations to expensive educational events hosted by prominent conservative groups is particularly concerning given her short tenure as her judge and her role in one of the most prominent criminal cases in the country. 

In July, Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against Trump, ruling that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional. The decision, which was appealed by the Justice Department, put a spotlight on past rulings by Cannon seen as overly favorable to the former president. 

In 2022, Cannon was sharply rebuked by the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after granting the former president a request for a “special master” to review troves of classified documents seized during the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. The court of appeals wrote that the unprecedented nature of Trump’s case did not give “the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation.”