Cannon was as soon as reimbursed for a visit to Montana to attend a convention held by a faculty with deep conservative ties.
A brand new report reveals that U.S. District Decide Aileen Cannon, the Donald Trump-appointed Florida decide presiding over the case relating to Trump’s improper storage of labeled paperwork, as soon as obtained a luxurious journey from a faculty backed by Leonard Leo, the conservative kingmaker of the judiciary department.
In response to monetary paperwork reviewed by Accountable.US and reported by The Guardian, Cannon was as soon as reimbursed for a six-day journey to a luxurious lodge in Montana by George Mason College’s Antonin Scalia Regulation College — a faculty that was named after the late Supreme Court docket Justice Antonin Scalia after he died in 2016 due to a $30 million donation organized by Leo. The aim of the journey was for Cannon to attend the “Sage Lodge Colloquium,” a seminar held on the Sage Lodge resort and spa in 2021.
In contrast to in current scandals involving Justice Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, Cannon reported the present on her 2021 monetary disclosure kind. Nevertheless it’s unclear why the journey was reimbursed to start with — although it’s comparatively frequent for judges to have journeys for talking engagements paid for, Cannon isn’t listed as a speaker or instructor in the agenda for the gathering.
There isn’t proof that Leo funded the journey instantly, and there doesn’t appear to be something illegal concerning the change. However the journey, and the college’s connection to Leo, is a present of Leo’s affect over the judiciary and connections with an unlimited community of conservative judges throughout the nation.
The colloquium included a number of conservative seminars. One session, on “Woke Regulation,” was taught by an Antonin Scalia Regulation College professor and Cato Institute senior fellow. The studying assignments for the course included a guide entitled Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Every little thing About Race, Gender, and Id – And Why This Harms All people, which was co-written by far proper conspiracy theorist James Lindsay.
One other session was entitled “Classes from State Administrative Regulation for the Reassessment of Chevron,” seemingly about “Chevron deference,” a settled precedent that enables federal businesses to interpret ambiguous parts of legal guidelines that could quickly be overturned by the Supreme Court docket.
A six-night keep on the Sage Lodge would probably price a number of thousand {dollars}. A keep in a typical single mattress room for a similar time interval in 2024, as an example, could be roughly $5,600 after taxes and costs, in keeping with the lodge’s web site.
The occasion itself was placed on by the Antonin Scalia Regulation College, which seems to have deep ties throughout the conservative judiciary motion. After Leo’s donation and the college’s rebrand in 2016, it “developed an unusually expansive relationship with the justices of the excessive courtroom” as The New York Instances reported in April, seemingly particularly with conservative justices, although additionally with the Court docket’s liberals. The varsity now often gives educating positions, together with bespoke applications overseas, to Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, The Instances discovered.
“By any variety of metrics, Scalia Regulation’s closeness to the justices has coincided with a hanging upswing in its fund-raising and educational standing,” the report learn. “Scalia Regulation has hit its stride partly by capitalizing on the conservative outcry towards ‘woke’ elite establishments of upper schooling.”
Cannon can be tied to Leo in different methods. For almost twenty years, Cannon has been a member of the Federalist Society — the far proper conservative authorized community that Leo chairs.
“It’s no shock that Decide Cannon has benefited from Leo’s well-funded community. Over many years, Leo has used shady techniques to curry favor with judges in any respect ranges in service of his final purpose: to drive an excessive, radical agenda on Individuals,” mentioned Accountable.US senior advisor Kyle Herrig. “Finally, it calls into query the decide’s impartiality and who she’s serving. Is she serving the American folks or is she serving Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society?”
