For the most part, we owe the fact that we still have a democracy to the United States judiciary. (We exclude the SCOTUS in this because they didn’t handle many Trump-election cases and because the SCOTUS could rip the heart out of democracy if it rules for the conservative legislatures in each state, establishing a permanent minority government.) But the U.S. judiciary, the district judges, and the circuit courts of appeal got us through 2020 and the aftermath with criminal charges, signing search warrants, etc.

There was, of course, one major exception. Aileen Cannon was deemed “qualified” by the ABA because she had 12 years of experience as an attorney, but many believed her to be wholly unqualified and inexperienced in many areas long before she took the Trump case. She certainly showed that inexperience and an open allegiance to Trump that dropped jaws across the country. Her decision to bring in a special master was bad enough. Ordering the FBI to stop using the documents in its criminal investigation was literally unheard of.

The 11th Circuit reversed the humiliating ruling about putting the FBI investigation on hold within weeks, an amazingly short time, with a panel of unanimous conservative judges. Later, the DOJ appealed the entire order, the Special Master order. The 11th Circuit turned that around in less than a month (a process that can often take six months). Trump’s team didn’t even appeal it to the SCOTUS which is very telling.

So, yesterday, Judge Cannon must have received the remittitur, an order from the 11th Circuit sending the case back to her that says “Do this,” in accord with their opinion, and Cannon had to sign an order that will go down as one of her most humiliating moments in law and one of the federal judiciaries most infamous orders:

The most important decision of your career makes you a national embarrassment and a subject of ridicule for every first year law student from now until the end of time. Had to be a fun signature. #ETTD pic.twitter.com/ib9xt8jvtt

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 12, 2022

She could have saved a lot of time and grief listening to the endless number of legal experts telling her she was dead wrong.

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman