There’s an article in the NY Times today about Cannon’s running of this case - here’s a gift link. It expands upon Aspenglow’s excellent post above, adding interesting (to me) details on how she has run the hearings so far.
Some excerpts:
The portrait that has emerged so far is that of an industrious but inexperienced and often insecure judge whose reluctance to rule decisively even on minor matters has permitted one of the country’s most important criminal cases to become bogged down in a logjam of unresolved issues.
Regardless of her motives, Judge Cannon has effectively imperiled the future of a criminal prosecution that once seemed the most straightforward of the four Mr. Trump is facing.
She has largely accomplished this by granting a serious hearing to almost every issue — no matter how far-fetched — that Mr. Trump’s lawyers have raised, playing directly into the former president’s strategy of delaying the case from reaching trial.
This exchange is…really something:
Something similar happened moments later when Judge Cannon turned to David Harbach, one of the prosecutors, to discuss Mr. Woodward’s request.
Mr. Harbach had just spent the better part of five minutes telling the judge that Mr. Woodward’s claims of misconduct were a “fantasy” and that, under the law, he was not entitled to rummage around in the government’s private messages.
But Judge Cannon seemed to miss his point, asking Mr. Harbach if he was suggesting that prosecutors did not have any of the messages that Mr. Woodward wanted. No, he told her, explaining again that Mr. Woodward had failed to present any evidence that would even merit turning over what he wanted.
“So I guess what you are saying is you’re not sure?” she asked.
No, Mr. Harbach said for a third time, once more trying to explain that Mr. Woodward’s description of the meeting in August 2022 was entirely false and that the normal legal threshold for handing over private communications had simply not been reached.
“I know you disagree with the factual recitation of the August meeting,” Judge Cannon said. “But would that provide a basis for the discovery request?”
Now clearly frustrated, Mr. Harbach said as plainly as he could that Mr. Woodward’s request had no basis in either fact or law.
“This is what I’m trying to tell you,” he all but shouted at the judge.
That discussion ultimately ended with Judge Cannon telling Mr. Harbach he needed to “calm down.” It was emblematic of the dwindling reserves of patience between Judge Cannon and the prosecutors.
