Florida Judge Aileen Cannon failed to disclose lavish trips hosted by influential conservative law school
Florida District Court Judge Aileen Cannon failed to disclose her attendance at several right-wing judicial seminars — including one that took place after she began overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case, which she ultimately threw out — in apparent violation of federal court rules.
According to a Tuesday report from ProPublica, in May of 2023, Cannon attended a swanky banquet hosted by George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School — one of the leading conservative law schools in the nation. The school was renamed in honor of the late Supreme Court justice after a $20 million donation brokered by Supreme Court architect Leonard Leo, who controls a billion-dollar dark money fund and serves as co-chair chairman of of the Federalist Society, the powerful conservative lawyers network.
Cannon, a longtime member of the Federalist Society, attended a lecture and dinner alongside members of the society, Scalia’s family members, and prominent federal judges, according to materials obtained by ProPublica. Cannon submitted several reimbursement requests to the law school related to her travel expenses.
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There shouldn’t be any paid resort trips for judges in the first place, even with disclosure.
Week long colloquiums at a resort in Montana paid for by some conservative group? Why do judges need a colloquium in the first place? They don’t need to go to a conference to tell them how to judge things based on political lines. There’s already a system of judges that’s supposed to interpret grey areas of the law as a group that’s the whole point of appellate courts and the multi-judge panels on them.