Aileen Mercedes Cannon (born 1981) was the Republican Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida from 13 November 2020, succeeding Kenneth Marra.
Biography[]
Aileen Mercedes Cannon was born in Cali, Colombia in 1981 to an American father and a Cuban mother, and she was raised in Miami, Florida. She received her juris doctor in 2007 and affiliated herself with the conservative Federalist Society, going on to serve as an assistant US attorney for the Southern District of Florida from 2013 to 2020 and as a federal judge from 2020, having been appointed by Donald Trump. From August to December 2022, she presided over a lawsuit regarding Trump's request to have a special master handle his theft of classified documents, and she granted Trump permission to have a special master intercede, a ruling overruled by the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit for wrongly exercising jurisdiction over the case. In June 2023, she presided over United States v. Trump, a federal criminal case against Trump over the documents affair, resulting in cries for Cannon to recuse herself due to her history with Trump.