"Judge Aileen Cannon will begin three days of hearings that could determine the future of the charges against the former president.
Trump is arguing that Jack Smith – who has brought charges against Trump in Florida and Washington, DC – was unlawfully appointed as special counsel."
Three days to go “Yeah, no he wasn’t.”
If she did it, the judgement would immediately be appealed and she would get her pee pee slapped hard and the judgement would be overturned. Maybe, if the gods are good, she’ll be removed from the case. It seems unlikely that she will take that chance though since she can cause more delay by staying where she it, but who knows, she doesn’t seem to be the sharpest crayon in the box so maybe she will do it.
The whole point of this is just to delay until the election when Trump, should he be reelected, can undermine the whole thing. It’s clear that the attorney general can appoint a special council when an investigation by DoJ directly could present a conflict of interest. Making a bad ruling here might work for her though. Having the ruling appealed would certainly delay things at least a few weeks or a month and that could take us to the end of July before it was overturned and/or sent back down to her court.
If the appeals court does finally decide to give her the boot, it would take quite a while to get a new judge appointed and a new trial underway. There would be no chance of a decision before the election and that is the whole goal. Plus, then she’d probably be free to go on the right wing talk circuit and make piles of money while still supporting Trump.
She has two goals:
To entertain all of the ridiculous motions to get the charges dismissed that Trump makes and deny them. This is for the purpose of cover so she can point to those rulings as a defense against accusations of bias, while also delaying the trial until after the election in the hopes that Trump wins and orders the DOJ to drop the charges.
If and when the case does go to trial, then she’ll entertain and grant a motion to dismiss once a jury is seated so double jeopardy attaches and Trump walks anyway. She’s already openly all but said as much, as she is intentionally waiting until the start of the trial to rule on some defense motions.
The appellate courts removing her from the case won’t mean she stops being a judge. Only impeachment and removal can do that, and there’s zero chance that 2/3 of the senate is going to vote to remove her from the bench. Her seat is secure. She’s basically trying to angle for a seat on the Supreme Court, knowing that two judges are likely going to be replaced during the next term and this is her best shot at getting one of them, while also knowing full well that her job is secure even if all of this blows up in her face. In her mind, she’s basically gambling with house money.
At this point, she’s already delayed things enough to push any ruling past the election. There’s less and less downside to having her removed as the date gets closer.
All this for what should be the easiest case against Trump. Did he store boxes full of classified documents on his personal property? Yes. Did he declassify them before leaving office? No. Did he have the right to store them? No. We should be done here.