A report has accused Judge Aileen Cannon of again breaking a federal disclosure rule by quietly attending a right-wing judicial seminar and filing to have her travel expenses reimbursed.
ProPublica reported Tuesday that Cannon attended a banquet thrown by George Mason University’s right-leaning law school in 2023—well after she was called on to preside over Donald Trump’s classified documents case.
ProPublica reported that Cannon traveled to Virginia in May of that year to sit through a lecture and have dinner with fellow members of the Federalist Society, Antonin Scalia’s loved ones, and other conservative judges. The website reported that documents showed Cannon submitted “multiple” requests for reimbursement to the law school, which is named after Scalia.
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Cannon’s attendance at last spring’s event had not been reported on prior to Tuesday. That lack of public notice reportedly puts Cannon in violation of a 2006 rule that requires federal judges to file disclosure forms for their attendance at partisan events within 30 days and to also make them public on their court’s website—something Cannon reportedly failed to do.
Cannon controversially tossed Trump’s classified documents case in July on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. That decision came as a shock to many at the time, with critics asserting that the Trump-friendly decision may have been the result of bias.
The appointment to Trump’s case in 2022 put Cannon, 43, and her political leanings under a microscope, with Democrats calling on her to recuse herself from the case because she was a Trump appointee.
NPR was first to report in May of this year that Cannon broke the same disclosure rule by taking weeklong trips to events at a luxury lodge in Montana—sponsored by George Mason—that she didn’t disclose on her website in 2021 and 2022.
Clerk of Court Angela Noble defended her Cannon’s appearances in Montana after NPR’s report, claiming it was merely oversight and technical issues that prevented Cannon from disclosing her trips on her website.
“Any omissions to the website are completely inadvertent,” she told NPR.
A clerk for Cannon also came to her defense in a statement this week to ProPublica, claiming the judge had submitted the necessary disclosure but had just mistakenly omitted it from her website.
“Judges often do not realize they must input the information twice,” the clerk reportedly said.
