U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon may not be the presiding judge over former President Donald Trump’s classified document case for much longer thanks to her recent order involving a criminal defendant who is also associated with the case.

That’s the opinion that former assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Weissmann has come away with, according to Newsweek. He believes she may soon be recused.

On Monday, Judge Cannon submitted a court order requesting Walt Nauta, a former aide to the ex-president to give evidence related to the Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request to bring in an out-of-state jury. A Washington, D.C. grand jury has been overseeing the case since its inception.

Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira have both been charged in the classified documents case for purportedly attempting to prevent government officials from retrieving material from Trump’s Palm Beach home.

Despite all the trouble he’s in, Trump is still the leading GOP frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination, even after being indicted three times. Amazing, but it tells you everything you need to know about Republicans. And two of the indictments are courtesy of Smith, who indicted him on four counts relating to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges last Thursday in D.C., after having previously pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the classified documents case.

In an appearance Tuesday on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight Weissmann said that regardless of how Cannon arrived at the decision to make the order, it was “unusual…and showed a fundamental misunderstanding of basic 101 criminal law as to how grand juries work—which they can continue investigating on-going crime of either an existing defendant or other defendants of other crimes that have been committed.”

On Sunday during an appearance on Fox News, former Trump attorney Jim Trusty referred to “a lot of shenanigans in terms of grand jury usage.” He added that an investigation doesn’t usually occur for a year in one location only to be moved to another district.

I don’t know if this commentary influenced Cannon, but the next day she filed the court document “of her own volition,” per Newsweek.

This is worth a watch as @JoyceWhiteVance and I break down with @alexwagner the issues raised by Judge Cannon's recent, highly problematic, Order and the potential for recusal as a result. https://t.co/d0yapZeOyS

— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) August 9, 2023

During his interview with Wagner, Weissman said prosecutors can bring a grand jury investigation anywhere a crime may have occurred and can include multiple districts, “as long as you have a good faith basis.”

“This was such a fundamental misunderstanding,” he said. “Where in God’s green earth is she getting this idea because it’s so off the charts from everything in the record, why is she doing this? It’s not like the litigants raised the issue, she’s doing it on her own and she’s wrong.”

Nick Akerman, a lawyer, and former Watergate prosecutor told Newsweek that it’s not unusual to have extra grand juries in other districts and added that in most cases a grand jury doesn’t continue an investigation after an indictment because it’s generally considered “improper.”

And there is a chance that the other grand jury is investigating other individuals potentially involved in alleged discretions in connection with the classified documents, Akerman said, “all of which is proper.” When government officials began the investigation in Washington, D.C., they may not have realized that co-conspirators only committed the alleged illegal acts in Florida.

“[Cannon’s] not the most experienced judge on the block, but she’s being very careful and there’s no reason to think what she’s doing isn’t proper and within bounds of what a federal judge can do,” he added.

But some folks have come to believe that Cannon’s behavior makes her look, well…incompetent. Because maybe she really is.

Patricia Crouse, a political science practitioner in residence at the University of New Haven remembered the time when Cannon allowed Trump’s legal team to appoint a special master last year to review the evidence in the case to determine what would be admissible in court

That order was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals, Crouse told Newsweek.

Cannon did, however, reject a request for a trial delay by Trump’s legal team to start the proceedings after the 2024 election. She issued an order for his trial to begin on May 20, 2024. While this may appear as if she’s acting against Trump and his legal team here, Crouse seems to suspect she did it for other reasons.

“Although [Cannon] turned down Trump’s request to delay the proceedings, she seems to be using delaying tactics to slow down the process,” Crouse said. “More than just favoring Trump though, from a political and I suppose legal perspective, she continues to look very inept at her job and in some cases not looking like she understands the law.”

Considering her proclivities as a Trump appointee it’s very possible that Cannon is simply not capable of doing her job and frankly I hope she is recused. The sooner the better. And I can’t help wonder if having a Trump-appointed judge presiding over his trials isn’t a conflict of interest.

But that’s just me.