Judge Aileen Cannon (L), and Former President Donald Trump (R).
Source: US Courts (L) | Getty Images (R)
The Florida federal judge who dismissed the criminal classified documents case against former President Donald Trump on Tuesday rejected a request that she step off the case of a man charged with trying to assassinate Trump at his golf course in September.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump, wrote in an order that none of the arguments cited by the defendant, Ryan Routh, justified recusing herself in the case in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach.
“Defendant cites a series of factors which he believes, when viewed in their totality, create an appearance of partiality,” Cannon wrote. “None warrants recusal, whether examined individually or together.”
“I have no ‘relationship to the alleged victim’ in any reasonable sense of this phrase,” Cannon said.
The office of the Federal Defender’s Office in West Palm Beach, which is defending Routh, declined to comment on Cannon’s ruling.
Routh’s attorneys’ in a filing last week had cited an ABC News report that said Cannon was on a list of possible nominees for U.S. Attorney General if Trump wins the presidential election against Kamala Harris next week.
Routh, 58, is charged in five-count indictment with trying to kill the Republican presidential nominee Trump, as well as with firearm crimes and assaulting a U.S. Secret Service agent.
Ryan W. Routh, suspected of attempting to assassinate Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course, stands handcuffed after his arrest during a traffic stop near Palm City, Florida, U.S., September 15, 2024.
Martin County Sheriff’s Office | Via Reuters
He was arrested on Sept. 15 after allegedly fleeing from a Secret Service agent who opened fire at him from Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach after spotting a rifle poking from a tree line. The former president was playing a round on the course nearby.
Routh has pleaded not guilty.
In their recusal motion to Cannon, Routh’s lawyers note that in addition to appointing Cannon to her seat, Trump “repeatedly praised” her in public statements, that there is a “prospect of judicial promotion” for Cannon if Trump is elected, and that if she recused herself it would “remove any public perception that Mr. Trump’s cases have [been] assigned to this Court in a non-random manner.”
Routh’s attorneys also pointed to rulings that Cannon made that were favorable to Trump, including dismissing the classified documents case, and that she went to high school in the 1990s with one of the prosecutors in Routh’s case and attended his wedding nine years ago.
“Taken together, these unprecedented facts and circumstances might create an appearance of partiality in the mind of the public,” Routh’s lawyers wrote in their motion on Oct. 17. “Accordingly, the Constitution and the federal recusal statute require Your Honor to recuse herself from this case.”
Cannon, in her ruling denying the recusal request, wrote she had “no control” over what Trump says about her, “Nor am I concerned about the political consequences of my rulings or how those rulings might be viewed by ‘some in the media.’ “
“I have never spoken to or met former President Trump except in connection with his required presence at an official judicial proceeding, through counsel,” she wrote.
She also wrote that Routh’s case, like two other ones involving Trump that she presided over, “were randomly assigned to me through the Clerk’s random assignment system. Period.”
“I will not be guided by highly inaccurate, uninformed, or speculative opinions to the contrary,” Cannon wrote.
Cannon brushed aside the speculation that Trump would elevate her to a higher judicial seat or to the U.S. Attorney General’s Office.
“Stripped of such speculation, the Motion fails to cite any objective facts warranting a reasonable inference of partiality or bias under applicable legal principles,” she wrote.
In July, Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against Trump, in which he was charged with retaining hundreds of sensitive government records after leaving the White House in January 2021 and obstructing efforts by officials to recover them.
Cannon ruled that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith as a prosecutor in the case violated the Constitution’s appointments clause.
Cannon’s ruling in the documents case, which Smith has appealed, came two days after a gunman shot at Trump at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania. The shooter in that incident was killed by the Secret Service.