“I was wrong to be optimistic”: Ex-prosecutor slams Cannon for considering Trump’s “frivolous” suit

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon has floundered in her handling of former President Donald Trump’s federal criminal case in Florida compared to the judge presiding over Trump’s Georgia criminal case, who “has been impressive, in a quiet, competent sort of way, ever since the Fulton County case was first assigned to him,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance suggested in a Thursday post to her Substack. 

Vance praised Georgia State Court Judge Scott McAfee for being “courteous to both sides” and seeming “fair-minded, up to speed on the law, and unafraid to rule promptly,” giving credit to his courtroom proceedings in the Georgia election interference case being televised. In contrast, Vance conceded that, though she wanted to give Cannon — who the Eleventh Circuit ruled to have overstepped in her serious consideration of a “frivolous” lawsuit Trump had filed to delay the government’s investigation after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago last year — the benefit of the doubt upon her assignment to the case, she had ultimately misplaced her faith in the Trump-appointed judge.

“Initially, I wasn’t concerned. I even made the argument that every federal judge gets that gig because they’re appointed by a president from one party or the other, and there was no reason for us to be critical of her before observing how she would handle the case. Of course, I was wrong to be optimistic in that case,” Vance wrote. “But I continue to believe that most judges do take their job seriously and set aside their politics and any party affiliation when they take to the bench.”