The historic federal criminal case against Former President Donald Trump has been initially assigned to a judge he appointed who faced criticism over her decision to grant the Republican’s request for an independent arbiter to review documents obtained during an FBI search of his Florida estate.
A person familiar with the matter says the case has been assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a former federal prosecutor who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020 and sits in Fort Pierce. The move seems a rare bit of good news for Trump. Cannon’s profile was thrust into the spotlight when she issued what many legal experts saw as an extraordinary decision to approve a so-called special master to review the documents seized by the FBI.