‘She’s Going to Be Famous for a Long Time’
For many judicial nominees, a Senate confirmation hearing is one of life’s most grueling experiences—an hours-long job interview led by lawmakers who are trying to get them to face-plant on national television.
Not for Aileen Cannon. When the federal judge who will oversee former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial testified in 2020, the Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t go easy on her so much as they ignored her.
Cannon, then a 39-year-old prosecutor, appeared on Zoom alongside four other nominees, her face framed by a wall of diplomas on one side and an American flag on the other. Her opening statement lasted all of three minutes and sounded like an Oscar winner’s speech—lots of thank-yous and little else. She didn’t say a word about her legal philosophy or how she would approach the job of a judge. The senators didn’t seem to mind: None of them addressed a question specifically to Cannon for the rest of the hearing. The committee’s chair at the time, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, skipped the
