ProPublica reports that Federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the controversial jurist who tossed out the classified documents criminal case against Donald Trump in July, failed to disclose her attendance at a May 2023 banquet funded by a conservative law school. The rule that requires disclosing attendance at private seminars is supposed to be ironclad, but reportedly, Cannon has repeatedly violated it. Disclosure of such participation is meant to avoid incidents of conflicts of interest or the influencing of legal decisions, and requires jurists to file disclosure forms for such trips within 30 days and make them public on the court’s website.
The first of these violations occurred in 2006 when Cannon attended an event in Arlington, Va. honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, according to documents obtained from the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University. At a lecture and private dinner, she sat with members of Scalia’s family, fellow Federalist Society members and more than 30 conservative federal judges. Organizers billed the event as “an excellent opportunity to connect with judicial colleagues.”
But there are more. In 2021 and 2022, Cannon took weeklong trips to the luxurious and pricey Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, for legal colloquiums sponsored by George Mason, which named its law school for Scalia. For both trips, Cannon did not file a disclosure form until NPR reporters asked about the omissions this year as part of a broader national investigation of gaps in judicial disclosures.
Cannon did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
ProPublica followed up and raised questions with the clerk in the Southern District of Florida of Cannon’s jurisdiction. She replied in an email that Cannon had filed the Sage Lodge trips with the federal judiciary’s administrative office but had “inadvertently” not taken the second step of posting them on the court’s website for public access. She explained that “Judges often do not realize they must input the information twice.”
The clerk stated that she also had no information about the May 2023 banquet.
Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, stated, “Judges administer the law, and we have a right to expect every judge to comply with the law.”
Cannon’s husband, Joshua Lorence, a restaurant executive, accompanied her to the 2021 and 2022 colloquiums, which featured high profile conservative jurists, lawyers and professors as well as lengthy “afternoon study breaks,” according to records obtained by ProPublica. Cannon emailed university staff seeking reimbursement of airport parking expenses and inquiring about rental car reimbursement.
Federal judges are also required by law to file annual financial disclosures, listing items such as assets, outside income and gifts. Cannon’s annual disclosure form for 2023, which was due in May, has still not been filed. What Cannon has filed over the years—frequently belatedly—is rife with errors. 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.”
The court’s administrative office did not explain whether she has requested a one-time extension for the 2023 disclosure form to give her until Aug. 13 to file. A spokesperson would not discuss whether she met the deadline or the status of her disclosure, which must be reviewed internally.
