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U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon made waves earlier this week with a strange order about jury instructions. Now a new report says that two of her clerks quit toward the end of last year.
The report, by longtime legal writer and commentator David Lat for his “Original Jurisdiction” Substack, hasn’t been confirmed by MSNBC or NBC News. And Lat himself notes that it’s unclear when — possibly October and December 2023 — or why exactly these clerks left. But it’s an unusual situation for an already-inexperienced judge, not to say one who is presiding over the prosecution of a former president in a matter that implicates national security. Lat reports that her chambers are currently fully staffed.
The natural question this news raises is whether the departures were due to Cannon’s handling of the case. In any event, Lat writes that the turnover “was surely very disruptive and delay-inducing.”
Whatever the reason (or reasons) behind the turnover, that’s no small thing, given the delays that have permeated all the Trump cases. Even if the clerks’ departure is not the main reason for how the classified documents case has progressed — or not progressed — it’s an issue worth considering as we hopefully get more information.
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