Judge in Trump’s classified documents case under fire for failing to disclose right-wing banquet

Trump-appointed federal judge Aileen Cannon tossed classified documents case against former president in July

The Florida federal judge who dismissed the special counsel classified documents case against Donald Trump failed to properly disclose her attendance at a 2023 banquet funded by a conservative law school.

The May 5, 2023, event at George Mason University was held in honor of the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and included attendees from the conservative legal group the Federalist Society and right-leaning judges from across the country.

One of the attendees included William H. Pryor Jr., chief judge of the 11th Circuit, which is currently hearing an appeal of Cannon’s decision in the documents case. 

Cannon failed to follow a 2006 rule requiring judges to disclose within 30 days their attendance at paid seminars that could pose or suggest the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to reporting from ProPublica.

“Judges administer the law, and we have a right to expect every judge to comply with the law,” Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told the outlet.

Judge Aileen Cannon has had multiple issues with disclosing trips in recent years (AP)

Cannon’s annual disclosure form for last year was due in May but hasn’t been posted, according to ProPublica.

The Independent has contacted Cannon’s chambers for comment.

Cannon has been flagged for past disclosure issues, not publishing disclosures about 2021 and 2021 trips to a luxury Montana lodge for a series of George Mason events until asked about them by NPR reporters.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, has been under scrutiny for her unorthodox July ruling dismissing the classified documents case against the former president.

In August, special counsel Jack Smith urged a federal appeals court to revive the case, arguing Cannon’s ruling that he was unconstitutionally appointed to prosecute Trump was “nonsensical” and in contradiction to widespread practice and past Supreme Court rulings.

CREW has filed to reverse Cannon’s decision and remove the Florida judge, arguing her decision was founded in a “parallel legal universe” and amounted to “active judicial interference and advocacy.”

High-ranking federal and appeals court judges have been under heightened attention in recent years, thanks to a series of ethics scandals surrounding gifts and other unreported financial ties at the Supreme Court.

Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report years of luxury travel supplied by Harlan Crow, a conservative Texas billionaire and GOP megadonor, which the justice blamed on poor legal advice and inadvertent mistakes.

Thomas’s wife Ginni is also under the microscope for her work as a conservative political activist, including lobbying the White House to continue to falsely claim Donald Trump won in the aftermath of the 2020 election.