Moved a million hearts at Mar-a-Lago
By 
Aileen Cannon is certainly doing the job she was nominated to do:
Two and a half weeks after holding a hearing to pick a trial date in the classified documents case against former President Donald J. Trump, Judge Aileen M. Cannon still has not decided when the proceeding will begin.
Part of the problem is the case itself, which is inherently complex.
But Judge Cannon, who has been on the bench for only four years, has done herself no favors by allowing a logjam of unresolved issues to build up on her docket. That pileup appears to have kept her from reaching a prompt decision on the timing of the case even though the defense and prosecution have both informed her that they believe the trial can start this summer.
While the lack of a trial date is arguably the most important issue pending before her, it is one of several things that Judge Cannon has done, or not done, that have stirred concern about her decision-making.
On Monday night, for instance, she issued a curious order asking Mr. Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, to send her dueling jury instructions about two of the former president’s defenses in the case. She had already rejected one of them and seemingly rebuffed the other at a hearing last week.
Her interest in jury issues was somewhat strange because it came before she had decided when the trial would start. But it was doubly unusual because it seemed to embrace one of Mr. Trump’s most brazen defenses, leaving open the possibility that she could let the charges go to trial and then move to acquit the former president near the end of the proceeding by declaring that the government had failed to prove its case.
It’s hard to overstate how insane this dueling jury instructions request is, and how much it tips her hand:
The first scenario is also insane. A presidential record is any record created to assist POTUS in the execution of his official duties. Intelligence and NDI is not created for any other reason, certainly not “purely private” and unrelated to official duties (personal records) https://t.co/dlDkGKuLHU— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) March 19, 2024
Trump: The documents at Mar-a-Lago are covered by executive privilege! (I.e., by definition, presidential records)
Cannon: I will entertain this argument
Also Trump: These are all personal records!
Also Cannon: I will entertain this argument
What is even going on— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) March 19, 2024
As is so often the case, it’s hard to tell what to attribute to partisan corruption and what to attribute to incompetence, but either way the effect is the same — that is, Trump almost certainly skating on what is the most legally clear-cut case against him, because of the unqualified trial judge he personally appointed.