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ST. The historic federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump has been assigned to a judge he appointed who faced blistering criticism over her decision to grant his request for an independent arbiter to review documents obtained during an FBI search of his Florida estate.
A person familiar with the development confirmed Friday that the case was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a former federal prosecutor who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020 and sits in Fort Pierce, about an hour’s drive north of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
The indictment makes Trump the first former president in U.S. history to be charged with federal crimes. Trump said he has been ordered to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday.
While the indictment remained under seal Friday, two people familiar with the situation, who were not authorized to discuss it publicly by name, said that it included seven criminal charges. Those include willful retention of national defense information – a crime under the Espionage Act – and obstruction of justice, according to Trump’s attorney.
Cannon was thrust into the spotlight last year when she issued what many legal experts saw as an extraordinary and unusually broad decision to appoint a “special master” to review the documents seized by the FBI.
As part of that case, Cannon temporarily barred federal agents and prosecutors from reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during the search. Her order was ultimately thrown out by a federal appeals court, which found she had overstepped.
Trump’s supporters had cheered her ruling as a check on what they viewed as a politically motivated probe.
