Courts

Dedicated Originalist Aileen Cannon Can't Be Bothered To Learn Who These Founding Fathers People Are

Remember when Thomas Washington crossed the Delaware on a cherry tree?

By  
on
Screen Shot 2022-09-16 at 1.29.58 PM

Aileen Cannon

Judge Aileen Cannon really wanted to rid herself of the criminal case involving her professional patron Donald Trump lifting boxes and boxes of classified documents of profound interest to America’s adversaries and tossing them in front of his toilet when he wasn’t waving them around in front of random visitors. So, armed with a bonkers concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas — that even Sam Alito thought amounted to an Appeal to Heaven too far — Cannon hammered out nearly 100 pages of gloop about how special counsels can’t be real because the history and tradition of the Appointments Clause trumped the actual lived history and tradition of special counsels.

Whatever. Cannon has long identified as an Originalist, and the first rule of Originalism is that actual history is for suckers. It’s why they’ve created a whole cottage industry of publishing flimsy “alternative facts”-based history in student-edited journals for judges to cite when peer-reviewed scholarship doesn’t live up to right-wing fan fiction. But a lot of the public might not grasp how divorced “Originalism” is from a serious intellectual effort to understand the “original” history behind the Constitution.

Cannon is, also, one of several conservative federal judges who suck up luxury vacations funded by right-wing groups and then fail to disclose these gifts. And despite being called out for this, Cannon has done it again, with ProPublica identifying another conservative junket that she managed to not put on her forms.

But this paragraph jumped out:

Cannon’s annual disclosure form for 2023, which was due in May and offers another chance to report gifts and reimbursements from outside parties, has yet to be posted. (Cannon reported the two Montana trips on her annual disclosure forms, but the required 30-day privately funded seminar reports had not been posted. In 2021, Cannon incorrectly listed the school as “George Madison University.”)

Who can forget Founding Father George Madison?

Sponsored

Cannon intends, of course, to reference George Mason, the anti-Federalist whose work inspired the Bill of Rights and whose name graces the university attempting to posture itself as a right-wing outpost — complete with accepting a sketchy donation to rename its law school ASS Law in an unwittingly appropriate homage to Antonin Scalia. As opposed to James Madison, the Federalist Papers contributor and president whose name graces the university that won the Sun Belt conference to get into March Madness.

This might seem like a nitpick, and in a sense it is. Madisonian malapropisms are understandable. But on the other hand, someone who cites Framers as a source of second-hand credibility probably should take care to never betray even the hint that all that talk about divining meaning from a deep and thorough mastery of the Founding might be, you know, disingenuous bullshit.

Judge Aileen Cannon Failed to Disclose a Right-Wing Junket [ProPublica]

Earlier: Aileen Cannon Dismisses Trump Classified Documents Case
Supreme Court Justices Aren’t The Only Ones Failing To Report Lavish Trips

Sponsored

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Topics

,