Judge Aileen Cannon may have been appointed by Trump, but he'll turn on her if she ever sides against him during his criminal case, former prosecutors say
- The Department of Justice has indicted Trump in the Mar-a-Lago records case.
- The judge likely overseeing the case is Judge Aileen Cannon, whom Trump appointed.
Former President Donald Trump appointed US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is likely going to preside over his federal criminal case in Florida. But former prosecutors told Insider that even though Trump appointed Cannon, he could still turn on her if she ever sides against him in the case.
"This is Donald Trump — everyone is fair game," Mark Bederow, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney's office, told Insider. "He will criticize anyone who doesn't do what he wants to do, whether it's former staff members, former lawyers, former press secretaries, former political colleagues, former vice presidents to when he was president, you name it. It's just a matter of time."
The Justice Department indicted Trump on Thursday, accusing him of mishandling government records from the White House and bringing them to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The indictment was unsealed on Friday, revealing that Trump is facing 37 charges connected to the case.
A former Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of Florida told Insider that Cannon will likely oversee the case because she presided over a related case last year.
Bederow told Insider that Trump will probably initially see Cannon being assigned to the case as a "good thing" — up until "something goes against him."
Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor who also worked in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, told Insider that a move like that would be "straight out of his playbook."
"At some point, he's going to go through the same process that hundreds of thousands and millions of other people go through in the criminal justice system," Levin said. "The system is not always stacked in favor of the defendants, put it that way."
"If he attacks the judge, I cannot say that I will be very surprised by that," Levin added.
Trump has not yet spoken out about Cannon likely being assigned the case.
He has denied all wrong doing in the case, though, and previously argued he had the power to declassify documents. His lawyer did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.