Judge Kimba Wood is the sitting judge presiding over the Michael Cohen case. Michael Cohen is the personal lawyer for Donald Trump. His offices were raided last week as part of the Mueller investigation into Russian collusion by the Trump campaign.
They were in court last week arguing about attorney-client privilege. Michael Cohen was arguing about the use of the material confiscated from his office. He claimed to have privilege over the material.
Instead of Michael Cohen winning, the judge decided to announce the names of his other clients “violating judicial standards” according to the National Review website.
She also was a nomination of Bill Clinton for Attorney General while he was president. Another conflict was that the attorney on the other side represented CNN and the New York Times.
Who is Kimba Woods?
Kimba Woods is a district court judge for the United States. She has been in that position since 1988. She has presided over several high profile cases during her tenure as judge. One of those cases was in 2010 where “10 Russian spies pleaded guilty to being illegal foreign agents,” according to the website for Time Magazine.
She is held in high regard. In fact, she was nominated by Bill Clinton for Attorney General in 1993. She was not Clinton's first pick due to irregularities with the first nominee.
She ended having to withdraw her name as nominee later though.
The first nominee was found to have employed illegal immigrants to work without paying the proper taxes. Kimba Wood also employed an illegal immigrant to be her nanny. The difference was that she paid the taxes for her nanny. She withdrew her name as Time magazine claimed it was “awful deja vu.” She did not do anything illegal but the circumstances were too similar to proceed with her nomination.
This relationship between Kimba Wood and Bill Clinton
Obviously, there could be bias against Cohen because of Bill Clinton's nomination for Attorney General. Hillary Clinton, the wife of Bill Clinton, has blamed the Russian collusion on her loss to Donald Trump in the last presidential election.
When she announced the clients of the Michael Cohen this “violated longstanding, judicially endorsed standards against identifying uncharged persons in legal proceedings attendant to criminal investigations,” according to the National Review website.
Sean Hannity is a well known television analyst for Fox Network. He was not accused of any wrongdoing in this case and it was irrelevant to the proceedings.
Another questionable aspect of this case is that it is still under Grand Jury. Grand Jury proceeding are usually held in private. This proceeding for some reason was open to the public. There is no reason for these proceedings to be public.
This leads to the fact that the lawyer opposing Michael Cohen also represented CNN and the New York Times. CNN is the rival of Fox News. Hannity is a host of a show on the Fox News Network. His ratings are higher than any reporter on CNN. The lawyer representing CNN persuaded the judge to publicly announce Michael Cohen's other clients.
How convenient for CNN.
Conflicts of interest
Kimba Wood should excuse herself from this case. She obviously has a conflict of interest. She had interacted with Bill Clinton and impressed him enough to be nominated for Attorney General.
She should have realized the relationship between the opposing lawyer and his relationship with CNN. Sean Hannity is a well known conservative from Fox News. Her releasing his name would bring into question anything he had to say about Michael Cohen on his broadcast.
CNN wasted no time in mentioning the conflict of interest. The problem with them yelling conflict of interest is that they did not mention their own. They should have stated that the lawyer arguing the case had represented them in the past.
This incident violated judicial standards. It also looks like CNN took advantage of it to ensure they could discredit their competitor. The problem is they failed to mention their own conflict. Another example of fake news and accusing one network of wrongdoing while CNN themselves was just as guilty.
Kimba Wood should be reprimanded for lack of judicial prudence if not relieved of her duties as an United States District judge. CNN should apologize to Sean Hannity and the Fox News Network. The network should also be investigated as to whether they influenced the decision of the judge.
News networks should work on reporting the news. The reason for good ratings is creating a product that people want to watch. CNN is literally creating the news and Kimba Wood helped in this endeavor by not following the rules of the law.
