Judge Aileen Cannon may initially preside over Trump court appearance. Who is she?

Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of former President Trump who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, may initially preside over his court appearance set for Tuesday, according to reporting from multiple outlets.

Trump has been indicted by the Justice Department (DOJ) on potential charges related to whether he mishandled classified documents.

Cannon’s name appeared on the summons for Trump’s Tuesday appearance in Miami, as did Judge Bruce Reinhart, who approved the warrant to search the former president’s Florida home, ABC News first reported Friday.

Cannon’s presence as a judge in the case — even if it is limited to Trump’s initial appearance — is likely to provoke scrutiny.

Rulings from Cannon substantially slowed the DOJ’s investigation into Trump, in one instance barring prosecutors from using the classified documents they seized from the home.

She later appointed a special master in the case tasked with assessing whether documents aligned with Trump’s claims that documents might be covered by executive privilege — an argument the special master himself later expressed skepticism over.  

Here are five things to know about Cannon.

Trump-appointed, bipartisan-approved

Trump nominated Cannon to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in April 2020. At the time, she was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Office for the Southern District of Florida, working in the criminal division of the appellate section.

The Senate confirmed Cannon on Nov. 12, 2020, five days after major networks called the 2020 election for President Biden, in a bipartisan 56-21 vote. Twelve Democrats supported her appointment, and 23 senators did not vote.

During her confirmation process, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked if Cannon had “any discussions with anyone — including, but not limited to, individuals at the White House, at the Justice Department, or any outside groups — about loyalty to President Trump.” 

Cannon responded “no” in writing.

Member of the Federalist Society

Cannon has been a member of the Federalist Society since 2005, according to a judicial nominee questionnaire she submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee in April 2020. The group is made up of conservative and libertarian lawyers, law students and scholars.

Cannon said she joined the Federalist Society when she was a student at the University of Michigan Law School. She was asked during her confirmation process about why she joined the group.

“I did so because I enjoyed the diversity of legal viewpoints discussed at Federalist Society meetings and events,” Cannon responded in writing.

“I also found interesting the organization’s discussions about the constitutional separation of powers, the rule of law, and the limited role of the judiciary to say what the law is—not to make the law,” she added.

Six of the nine justices sitting on the Supreme Court — all of whom were nominated by Republican presidents — are members of the Federalist Society, in addition to a number of GOP senators.

Appointed Trump case’s special master

In September, Cannon shot into the spotlight after granting former Trump’s request for an independent mediator to examine materials the FBI recovered during a search the month prior at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Cannon made the divisive decision after hearing arguments from the ex-president’s lawyers, who pushed for the special master, and attorneys from the Department of Justice (DOJ), who said the former president’s claims of privilege were unwarranted. She appointed Judge Raymond Dearie to the post.

She ultimately ordered that a special master be appointed to determine what seized materials are protected by attorney-client and executive privilege.

The Justice Department appealed the ruling, and ultimately an appeals court ruled Dec. 1 that the appointment was improper, determining that a lower court could not limit the Justice Department investigation into the mishandling of White House records at Mar-a-Lago. 

“The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so,” a three-judge panel wrote for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Trump’s attorneys failed to meet multiple tests required to show that the government abused its authority by searching his home. The court rejected the former president’s claims to the documents as he argues they could be protected by personal or executive privilege.

Cannon ruled in the Pelosi, Ocasio-Cortez threats case

Cannon is not new to presiding over high-profile litigation. In April 2022, the federal judge sentenced a man to 18 months in prison for making threats against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

Paul Hoeffer, 60, pleaded guilty in February to interstate transmission of threats to injure and admitted to threatening to kill the two congresswomen in March 2019 and November 2020. He also threatened a district attorney in Illinois.

But the 18-month sentence from Cannon was significantly shorter than the three-and-a-half years of prison time prosecutors had asked for. And it was more than a year shorter than the minimum punishment under federal sentencing guidelines, according to The Palm Beach Post.

Hoeffer’s legal team requested a shorter sentence because their client was diagnosed with cancer.

From Colombia to southern Florida

Cannon — who was born in 1981 in Colombia — made a number of stops in the legal world before landing at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

After receiving a bachelor of arts degree from Duke University in 2003 and earning her juris doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 2007, Cannon clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in Des Moines, Iowa, where she worked for a year. The bench was Republican-appointed, according to the Times.

She then moved to Washington, D.C., to be an associate attorney at the corporate law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, where she worked for three years, before taking a job as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

Rebecca Beitsch contributed.