Judge Aileen Cannon should be removed from former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case if an appeals court revives it, a government ethics watchdog group and a retired federal judge argued in an amicus brief filed Tuesday.

Cannon, who was nominated by Trump, dismissed the case in July, ruling that the Justice Department illegally appointed special counsel Jack Smith to lead the prosecution. Smith is appealing the ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and former U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner wrote, “A reasonable member of the public could conclude, as many have, that the dismissal was the culmination of Judge Cannon’s many efforts to undermine and derail the prosecution of this case.”

The brief was also signed by retired New York University law Professor Stephen Gillers and Hofstra University law Professor James J. Sample. Gertner is now a senior lecturer at Harvard University.

The brief points to a series of rulings the authors say has created the appearance of bias in favor of Trump. The authors noted that, if the case is restored, it would be the third time Cannon is overruled in it.

“At every possible opportunity, Judge Cannon has demonstrated her apparent bias in favor of Donald Trump,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said in a statement. “She has at every stage made this case more difficult than the law mandated, and she then dismissed it on largely unprecedented grounds, delivering a significant win to Trump. Should the Court reverse her decision, it must also ensure that the case is reassigned to allow it to proceed fairly and expeditiously and to help restore the credibility of the federal court system.”

Spectrum News has reached out to the U.S. District Court’s Southern District of Florida for comment from Cannon.

The brief listed several other grievances with the judge aside from the dismissal itself.

The authors complained about Cannon’s 2022 ruling that barred investigators from reviewing documents with classified markings seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. The decision fueled intense criticism from legal experts, and the three-judge appeals court unanimously ruled Cannon “abused” her “discretion” and overturned the ruling.

CREW and the others also argued Cannon issued an “inexplicable call for jury instructions on a spurious legal defense that would have gutted the Government’s case had it ever gone to trial.” The instructions embraced Trump’s claims that he had broad authority to take classified government documents under the Presidential Records Act. Smith blasted the request in a court filing as a “fundamentally flawed” understanding of the case that has “no basis in law or fact.”

The amicus brief also criticized Cannon for what it calls her “failure over the course of one year to move the case forward in any significant way” — until Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas alone questioned in a July opinion the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment. Two weeks later, Cannon cited Thomas’ opinion in her 93-page ruling dismissing the Trump case.

“Viewed together, these events confirm that Judge Cannon ‘has engaged in conduct that gives rise to the appearance of . . . a lack of impartiality in the mind of a reasonable member of the public,’’ the amicus brief says.