General Discussion

Despite what you apparently think, it was not guaranteed that Cannon would be assigned that case. Proof? Trump's RICO lawsuit against Hillary Clinton was filed in Fort Pierce, where Cannon is assigned. But the case was assigned to Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who is assigned to the West Palm division.

What has become apparent in recent days is that many people (and I include myself among them), don't actually know the ins and outs of how judges are assigned to cases in the Southern District of Florida. And that includes various "experts" who have offered all sorts of opinions, sometimes contradictory, about Cannon's appointment, whether it is "permanent", whether there are grounds for the 11th Circuit to disqualify her, etc etc.

Its become clear to me that the internal court rules and procedures for assigning judges are more complicated than simply assigning the case to a judge in the division where the case is filed. For example, the paperwork submitted by DOJ along with the indictment check the box for the West Palm Division (which makes sense since Mar-a-Lago, the locus of the acts described in the indictment, is in Palm Beach County ) and also checked to box asserting that this is not a "related" case to any other case. But that didn't prevent the case from being assigned to Cannon.

The system undoubtedly requires various factors to be taken into account. For example, it is likely that in deciding the "pool" of judges from which the assignment will be made, consideration must be given to the current workload of the judges, since it would make no sense to assign a case to a judge that already has a full plate of cases.

I wish Cannon hadn't been assigned to the case and maybe it will turn out that Smith can and will argue that the case should be heard in West Palm by a judge assigned to that Division. But since we know that a West Palm judge can be assigned to a Fort Pierce case, there is reason to think that a Fort Pierce judge can be assigned to a West Palm, or maybe even Miami, case.

But apart from some rule that would dictate who can and can't be assigned this case, there are not grounds for disqualifying her based on her handling of the Special Master case and I can't imagine that Smith would file a motion with the 11th Circuit that he knows would be denied.