What the hell is Judge Aileen Cannon doing now?

All along Judge Aileen Cannon has been making small “mistakes” seemingly aimed at helping Donald Trump in just subtle enough of a way that it wouldn’t get her forcibly removed from the case.

Then days ago Cannon made a stunningly and egregiously inappropriate ruling regarding classified evidence. It was so over the top, it made me wonder if she was suddenly trying to get herself kicked off the case, so she wouldn’t be under the microscope anymore.

But even as we wait for Jack Smith to presumably make his move to have the 11th Circuit overrule and/or remove Cannon from the Trump trial, Cannon has now ruled against Trump in a pretty blatant manner. Specifically she’s shooting down Trump’s request for a filing delay. Given that he’s trying to drag things out for as long as possible, this is the kind of ruling that Trump definitely didn’t want to see from Cannon.

So what is Cannon doing? That’s a good question. It’s important to keep in mind that while Cannon has been portrayed as having a secret evil genius master plan to help Donald Trump, and she’s somehow three steps ahead of the rest of us, there hasn’t been a shred of evidence to support this notion. What we’re really seeing from Cannon is that she’s an inexperienced idiot who’s in way over her head, and whatever she’s trying to pull off, she’s not any good at it. No matter what the agenda, this is all just unbelievably sloppy. This is not the work of a competent villain.

In any case, Aileen Cannon isn’t calling the shots here. Jack Smith is. He’s the one who’s surely been building a case to get her removed all along, and has simply been waiting for her to screw up badly enough for the 11th Circuit to be willing to remove her. In that sense Cannon is fairly powerless. In the end her motivations may not even matter. There’s just no way she’s going to be able to magically drag this trial past the election, even if she wants to. She keeps showing that she lacks the competence to pull off such a plot.

By the way, Cannon’s new ruling against Trump? It keeps the tentative start date of the trial on track for May of 2024. That doesn’t mean it’ll happen. But it sure does blow holes in the claim that she somehow has the power to push the trial past the election. For all of her bum rulings, the trial is still theoretically on track for this spring – and that may be why Smith hasn’t moved to get her removed yet.