The insistence by the Department of Justice that Judge Aileen Cannon not recuse herself from presiding over the trial of one of President Trump’s would-be assassins, Ryan Routh, stands in stunning contrast to the conflict over Judge Cannon’s handling of the Mar-a-Lago case against the 45th president. Mr. Routh warns that Trump could name Judge Cannon to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Routh is charged with five crimes, including attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, after lying in ambush in the bushes — with a gun — at the Trump International Golf Course. The government argues that he was at West Palm Beach “for one reason and one reason only and that was to kill the former President of the United States.”

The case was randomly assigned to Judge Cannon, who in July dismissed the Mar-a-Lago charges against Trump when she ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed as special prosecutor. Now Mr. Routh’s attorneys want a new judge. They argue that the “unprecedented facts and circumstances of this case, at the very least, create significant doubts about whether this court could preside” consistent with the demands of impartiality. 

The government avers that Mr. Routh’s “motion does not cite any authority mandating recusal in these circumstances, and does not present either facts or case law requiring recusal on this record in light of the controlling standard.” The DOJ reminds Judge Cannon that “judges are obligated to recuse only when there are proper grounds to do so.”

The government cites precedent from the 11th Appeals Circuit, which has held that “ordinarily, a judge’s rulings in the same or a related case may not serve as the basis for a recusal motion.” The circuit riders also warn that a judge “should not recuse himself on unsupported, irrational, or highly tenuous speculation.”

Mr. Routh’s attorneys, though, argue that Judge Cannon “owes her lifetime appointment to the alleged victim in this criminal case” — Trump, who appointed her in 2020. The federal recusal statute mandates that “any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

The attorneys discern that the bar is cleared because Trump, on the campaign trail, “has repeatedly praised” Judge Cannon for her dismissal of the documents case. They venture that if Trump were to “become President in the future, he would have authority to nominate Your Honor to a federal judgeship on a higher court were a vacancy to arise.” That appears to be an allusion to the possibility of her acceding to the Supreme Court.

The 11th Appeals Circuit mandates that “any doubts must be resolved in favor of recusal,” but courts have long demurred from finding previous rulings or the circumstances of appointment to the bench grounds for the detection of bias or grounds for recusal. Mr. Routh, though, calls this case sui generis because “members of the public may suspect that the judge will wish to ‘return the favor’” of her appointment to the federal judiciary. 

Every federal judge has been put up for a court by one president or another, and many have had cases before them in which the president who nominated has briefs before the court.

During Trump’s acceptance of the Republican nomination at Milwaukee — days after the first assassination attempt against him — the 45th president declared that a “major ruling was handed down from a highly respected federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, finding that the prosecutor and the fake documents case against me were totally unconstitutional, and the entire case was thrown out of court.”

The government’s petition to keep Judge Cannon on this case comes amid a growing effort to remove her from the Mar-a-Lago one. Mr. Smith, who works for the same DOJ that is prosecuting Mr. Routh, has appealed her dismissal of the charges to the 11th Appeals Circuit, but has so far resisted calls to also move for her recusal on the basis of a series of rulings favorable to the 45th president. That restraint, though, has not been shared by non-parties who have intervened in the case. 

These amicus curiae, or friends of the court, comprise such legal lights as Laurence Tribe and George Conway. They contend that Judge Cannon’s ruling “falls far outside the range of reasonable judicial decision making,” and amounts to a “pattern of unsupportable decisions” and “inexplicable handling of procedural matters.” They want the 11th Circuit to reassign the case on remand. The circuit riders can exercise their supervisory authority to remove Judge Cannon, even without Mr. Smith’s petition.