Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on A uniquely favorable jurist.

This NYT article reports on the clerk’s explanation for how Cannon was assigned to this case. In a nutshell:

Judge Cannon’s handling of the prior case was irrelevant. The “low number” rule Rob reports Ken White mentioning was not in play here.

Her assignment was “random” in the sense that judicial assignments usually are — that is, strictly speaking, although there were 10 judges who were eligible to receive the case, it was not a 1 in 10 chance, because that’s weighted by how full each judge’s caseload is, and 3 of those 10 judges are senior judges (semi-retired) who have smaller dockets and are at or close to their limit.

There is nobody, in the clerk’s office or otherwise, who sits down and says “hmm, who do I think should get this case?”

Short of trying to file in a different division, or a different district entirely, there wasn’t anything DOJ could have done to avoid the assignment — and filing somewhere else might have led to venue challenges, motions to transfer, etc.

Trump was able to get Cannon assigned to his civil case because he filed it in the division where she was one of only two judges. Even then it was not a sure thing, as another civil case he filed (against Clinton et al) got assigned to Judge Middlebrooks instead. It’s not like that division in Texas where the abortion pill case got filed because there’s exactly one judge and it was a virtual guarantee they’d get their anti-choice hack assigned.