The Left Whines about Trump Appointee Cannon after Forum-Shopping to Reliable Democrat Howell

As always, I appreciate Dan McLaughlin’s excellent analysis of the claim that Judge Aileen Cannon should be recused from the Trump case in Florida – including Dan’s consideration of the work I did examining the civil litigation in which Judge Cannon ruled in the former president’s favor, only to be reversed by the Court of Appeals.

It really is ridiculous that Republican-appointed jurists are customarily forced to deal with recusal onslaughts from the lefty legal scholars who dominate the profession and the media-Democratic messaging about big cases. It’s not just that progressive jurists, in analogous situations, are not subjected to anything close to this; commentators who attempt to subject both sides to the Left’s standard are savaged. Under circumstances where Democrats are trying to smear all Trump supporters as domestic terrorists over the Capitol riot, if you were to suggest that a Biden-appointed judge should recuse from January 6 cases, you’d be shredded by the same people insisting that Cannon should be disqualified if she declines to recuse (in hopes that a reliable Democrat catches the case).

For those of us who’ve toiled in fraught cases in front of hostile judges, the lefty scholar bleating is galling. Guess what? In courtrooms that are apparently in a different universe from the ivory tower, litigators have to deal with judges ideologically or instinctively sympathetic to the adversary. That’s the hand you’re dealt. Judge Cannon rules against you where the law is on your side? That means you appeal, not that she’s incapable of doing her job. If you win on appeal, that means she was wrong, not incorrigibly biased. Deal with it.

Democrats seem to think that if they face ordinary challenges in any situation, those need to be removed by mau-mauing rather than overcome by hard work. That’s not the way the world works – or, at least, is supposed to work. Unhappy about the judge assigned to the case? Welcome to the real world of litigation. The judge is not disqualified because she’s philosophically skeptical about your position. That’s a legitimate mindset . . . so work harder. That’s the skill – persuade!

Let me, however, get to my main point. In the Trump case, a matter in which every single relevant action occurred in Florida, the Biden Justice Department set up shop in Washington, D.C. Constitutionally speaking, a defendant is supposed to be charged in the place where the alleged crime was committed. That was Florida.

Nevertheless, the Biden Justice Department tried to plant the case in Washington, where it knew that controversies arising during the grand-jury phase would be decided by Judge Beryl Howell. She is a partisan Democrat. She’s an Obama appointee who was put on the bench after her years of service as Judiciary Committee counsel to Senator Pat Leahy, a dyed-in-the-wool partisan Democrat.

Transparently, the Biden Justice Department did this so that any controversial issue would be decided by the known quantity of Judge Howell, rather than by some judge in Florida. This forum shopping has been richly rewarded: When Biden prosecutor Jack Smith subpoenaed Trump’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, for testimony and notes of conversations with Trump, Howell ruled that Trump did not have an attorney-client privilege because he was trying to deceive the grand jury, triggering the crime-fraud exception.

The resulting testimony from Corcoran is the backbone of the Biden Justice Department’s case against Trump.

Was Howell right? Maybe. We haven’t gotten to read her opinion yet because of grand-jury secrecy rules. And since it was a grand-jury issue based on a subpoena to the lawyer, Trump was not a party and did not get to object the way he will now that he is an indicted defendant.

But my point is this: In a case where they knew everything happened in Florida, the Biden Justice Department and the Biden special counsel used a grand jury in Washington so they could get a friendly judge to make crucial rulings.

Under those circumstances, for the media-Democrat complex and its reliable lefty lawyer scholars to be bleating over the random assignment of the case to a Trump-appointed judge is rich.