The Aileen Cannon File: An Archaeological Dig Into a Judge’s Wealth and the System That Hides It

Part I: The Mirage of a Simple Number

My Hunt for a Fact and the Wall I Hit

It began with a simple question, the kind of query that seems, on its face, to have a factual, quantifiable answer: What is the net worth of United States District Judge Aileen Cannon? In an age of data, I expected a straightforward search.

I envisioned finding public records, official filings, and clear declarations that, when pieced together, would yield a reasonably accurate figure.

This is, after all, a lifetime-appointed public official, entrusted with immense power and whose impartiality is paramount.

Transparency, I assumed, would be a given.

What I found instead was a wall.

The initial search yielded not a number, but a fog of political commentary, fragmented data points, and, most frustratingly, official documents that seemed designed to obscure as much as they revealed.

I found databases like the Federal Judicial Center and the online repository for judicial financial disclosures, systems created under the banner of transparency.¹

Yet, the information within was a maze of broad ranges, vague descriptions, and legal jargon.

The Ethics in Government Act of 1978, a law born from the ashes of Watergate, promised to shine a light on the finances of public officials to prevent conflicts of interest.³

But the light it cast seemed weak and intermittent, illuminating small patches of ground while leaving vast areas in shadow.

The core struggle became clear: the system was not built for simple clarity.

It was a labyrinth.

The more I pushed for a simple answer, the more I realized I was asking the wrong question.

The value wasn’t in finding a number.

The value was in understanding why that number was so hard to find.

The story wasn’t about a person’s balance sheet; it was about the architecture of a system that allows for opacity while claiming to offer transparency.

Part II: The Epiphany: A New Blueprint for Truth – Financial Disclosures as an Archaeological Site

Mired in the frustration of dead ends and confusing forms, a paradigm shift was necessary.

The epiphany came when I stopped thinking of Judge Cannon’s financial profile as a modern, accessible spreadsheet and started seeing it for what it truly is: an archaeological dig site.

This analogy became the key.

One cannot simply read the surface of an archaeological site and understand the civilization that lies beneath.

You must excavate it, layer by layer.

You must treat each piece of information not as a standalone fact, but as an artifact, meaningless without the context of where it was found and the rules that governed its placement.

The goal is not just to collect artifacts, but to reconstruct the story they tell together.

Analogies are often used to make complex financial concepts understandable—comparing portfolio diversification to a balanced diet or market volatility to a yo-yo on an escalator.⁴

The “Financial Archaeology” model provides a new, powerful lens for this investigation.

This new framework has four essential components:

• The Surface Map: This is the official Financial Disclosure Report (FDR). It’s the visible, top-level chart of the site, showing the general layout but offering few details and often being misleading in its simplicity.
• The Strata (Layers): These are the different depths of information that must be excavated to get a complete picture. Layer 1 is the most accessible: public data like official salaries and property records. Layer 2 is the FDR itself, which requires careful decoding. Layer 3 is the deepest and often most revealing: information unearthed by investigative journalism, ethics complaints, and watchdog groups that reveals what was buried or omitted from the official map.
• The Artifacts: These are the individual data points we unearth—a house purchase, a reimbursed trip, a line item on a form, a missed deadline. In isolation, an artifact is just a curiosity. Placed in context with other artifacts, it becomes evidence.
• The Rules of the Dig: These are the laws and regulations, primarily the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (EIGA) and Judicial Conference policies, that dictate what must be disclosed and what can remain buried. Understanding these rules—their strengths and, more importantly, their weaknesses—is the only way to correctly interpret the meaning of the dig site.

Armed with this new blueprint, the investigation could begin in earnest.

The objective was no longer to find a single number, but to excavate the Aileen Cannon site, analyze its artifacts, and understand the story they tell about both a judge and the system of accountability that governs her.

Part III: Excavating the Aileen Cannon Site: A Multi-Layered Investigation

Layer 1: The Surface Terrain (Public Salaries and Property Records)

Every archaeological dig begins with mapping the visible, known terrain.

For Judge Cannon, this involves tracing her professional career and the public records of her major assets.

Her career path shows a distinct and significant financial turning point upon her judicial appointment.

After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School, she worked as an associate at the corporate law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher from 2009 to 2012.⁵

From 2013 to 2020, she served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) in the Southern District of Florida.⁶

The salary for this position is estimated to be around $67,000 per year.⁷

In November 2020, upon her confirmation as a U.S. District Judge, her salary increased dramatically to its current level of $232,600 per year.⁷

This salary jump provides crucial context for the first major artifact unearthed from public records: the purchase of her home.

The Vero Beach Home: The First Major Artifact

On August 24, 2020, a 4-bedroom, 3,671-square-foot home in Vero Beach, Florida, was purchased for $750,000.⁷

Public records show the purchaser was not Aileen Cannon, but her husband, Joshua Lorence.⁷

The timing of this transaction is the most critical detail.

The purchase occurred:

• After President Trump nominated her on May 21, 2020.
• After her Senate confirmation hearing in July 2020.
• But before she was officially confirmed by the Senate on November 12, 2020.⁶

At the time of the purchase, the couple’s household income was likely below $200,000, combining her AUSA salary with her husband’s estimated salary as a Chief Operating Officer for a restaurant group, pegged around $92,000 annually.⁷

Securing a mortgage for a $750,000 property on that income would be a significant financial undertaking.

However, doing so with the near-certainty of her salary more than tripling to $232,600 transforms the transaction from a risky venture into a confident, forward-looking investment.

This artifact is not merely about asset acquisition.

Its timing serves as a powerful political and financial “tell.” It suggests a profound level of assurance that her lifetime appointment, and the substantial pay raise that came with it, was a foregone conclusion months before the U.S. Senate cast its final vote.

It speaks to the political certainty surrounding her ascent to the federal bench.

Other surface-level assets fill out this initial map.

Public records indicate she co-owns an apartment in Key Largo, which had an assessed value of $471,058 in 2022, though records show conflicting names for the co-owner.⁷

She also previously held a mortgage of $157,500 on a property in Michigan.⁷

Layer 2: Decoding the Official Map (The Financial Disclosure Reports)

The next layer of the excavation involves decoding the official maps: Judge Cannon’s Financial Disclosure Reports (FDRs).

These documents, mandated by the EIGA, are intended to provide a public accounting of a judge’s financial interests.

However, an analysis of her available reports for 2021 and 2022 reveals a landscape of sparse detail and intentional vagueness.⁸

The key findings from her FDRs are notable for what they lack:

• Gifts: She reported receiving zero gifts.⁸
• Liabilities: She reported only a single liability: a mortgage on a rental property held by Bank of America. The value of this mortgage is not specified, a significant omission when trying to calculate net worth.⁸
• Investments: The reports list a few basic investments, including checking and savings accounts and some shares. However, these are reported in extremely broad value ranges, such as “$1,001 – $15,000” or “$15,001 – $50,000”.⁸ This is a standard feature of the federal disclosure system, but it makes any precise valuation impossible by design. An asset listed as “$500,001 – $1,000,000” has a potential value swing of half a million dollars.¹⁰
• Reimbursements: Each report listed a single reimbursement for attendance at a legal seminar, with the source listed as George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.⁸

The true story of these forms lies in what they don’t say.

The wide reporting bands are not an error; they are a feature of a system that provides only a blurry snapshot.

Furthermore, a pattern of delay emerges here as well.

As of September 2024, Judge Cannon’s annual disclosure for the 2023 calendar year, which was due in May 2024, had yet to be posted publicly.¹¹

This delay is another artifact, suggesting a consistent laxness regarding her own reporting obligations.

Layer 3: The Buried Strata (Privately Funded Travel and Disclosure Failures)

The most significant findings of this archaeological dig lie in the strata buried beneath the public record and the official forms.

This is information unearthed by the diligent work of investigative reporters and ethics watchdogs, revealing a pattern of undisclosed, privately funded travel.

In 2021 and again in 2022, Judge Cannon and her husband took weeklong trips to the luxurious Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, to attend legal colloquiums.¹¹

The sponsor of these trips was George Mason University’s Law and Economics Center, which is part of the Antonin Scalia Law School.⁸

The value of these trips was substantial; rooms at the Sage Lodge can exceed $1,000 per night.¹¹

Her reimbursement covered transportation, meals, and the hotel stay.⁸

In May 2023, she attended another event funded by the same conservative law school: a banquet in Arlington, Virginia, honoring the late Justice Scalia, which was described by organizers as an “excellent opportunity to connect with judicial colleagues”.¹¹

While the two Montana trips were eventually noted on her annual FDRs (with the university’s name misspelled as “George Madison University” in one instance), all three events represent a clear violation of a separate, more stringent disclosure rule.¹¹

A 2006 Judicial Conference policy, designed specifically to shine a light on such privately funded seminars, requires judges to file a detailed disclosure report within 30 days of the trip and post it on their court’s public website.¹¹

Judge Cannon failed to do this for all three events.

The disclosures for the two Montana trips were only posted online in 2024 after reporters from NPR began asking the court clerk about the omissions.⁵

The 2023 banquet was never disclosed under this rule at all.¹²

These buried artifacts are crucial.

While technically a “reimbursement” and not a “gift,” a fully-paid trip for two to a luxury resort, complete with “afternoon study breaks,” is a significant financial benefit.¹¹

The source of this benefit is not neutral.

The Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University was named in his honor thanks to $30 million in gifts that conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo helped organize.⁸

These are not simply academic seminars; they are ideologically aligned events that serve as networking and cultural reinforcement opportunities for a specific legal movement.

The failure to disclose these benefits in a timely and proper manner obscures the full picture of her engagement with, and financial benefit from, the very political-legal ecosystem that championed her appointment.

Part IV: Interpreting the Dig Site: Ethics, Systems, and Patterns

Excavating artifacts is only half the work.

The other half is interpretation—understanding what the collection of evidence means.

This requires analyzing the official explanations, the rules governing the site, and the patterns that emerge when all the artifacts are viewed together.

The “Inadvertent Error” Defense and the “Stickler for Procedure”

When ProPublica inquired about the failure to file the 30-day seminar reports for the Montana trips, the clerk for the Southern District of Florida offered an explanation: the failure was “inadvertent.” The clerk noted that the two-step process—filing with the judiciary’s administrative office and then separately posting to the court’s website—is confusing, and that “Judges often do not realize they must input the information twice”.¹¹

This explanation, however, sits uneasily next to two other key pieces of evidence.

First is Judge Cannon’s own reputation.

Legal observers and former colleagues have described her as a “stickler for procedure” in the courtroom.⁵

Second, and more damningly, other federal judges who attended the same May 2023 banquet—including the Chief Judge of her own 11th Circuit, William H.

Pryor Jr.—managed to navigate the process and correctly file their disclosures.¹¹

A one-time mistake might be credibly called an inadvertent error.

A pattern of three identical errors, committed by a judge known for her procedural meticulousness, stretches credulity.

When colleagues attending the same event comply with the rule, the “it’s too confusing” defense loses its force.

The pattern points to either a notable lack of diligence regarding her own ethical duties or a conscious disregard for these specific rules.

For a lifetime-appointed federal judge, either conclusion is deeply troubling.

The Law of the Land: The Ethics in Government Act (EIGA) – A Flawed Blueprint

The rules of this archaeological dig are primarily set by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

Born from the Watergate scandal, its purpose was to restore public confidence by ensuring transparency and preventing conflicts of interest.¹³

It created the Office of Government Ethics and mandated the very financial disclosures at the center of this investigation.³

However, excavating the Cannon site reveals that the blueprint itself is flawed.

Investigations by watchdog groups like Fix the Court and news organizations like ProPublica have exposed systemic failures in the judiciary’s compliance with and enforcement of the EIGA.

The system is plagued by:

• Widespread Delays: The judiciary consistently lags in uploading judges’ disclosures to the public database. As of June 2024, nearly 20% of 2022 reports from federal judges were still not uploaded.¹⁵
• Lack of Enforcement: The system relies on “judges judging judges,” a process that rarely results in accountability.¹⁶ The Financial Disclosure Committee of the Judicial Conference is responsible for enforcement, but it is understaffed, and its actions are opaque.¹⁶
• Trivial Penalties: The potential civil penalty for willfully falsifying or failing to file a report is a mere $5,000, and the fine for late filing is just $200—hardly a deterrent.¹⁶

The existence of laws, forms, and databases creates a Potemkin village of transparency.

It looks like a robust system from a distance, but upon closer inspection, it is hollow.

The vague reporting requirements, confusing rules, lax enforcement, and culture of non-compliance show that the system is not designed for serious public accountability.

Judge Cannon’s disclosure issues are not necessarily an anomaly; they are a symptom of a system that is failing in its core mission.

Connecting the Dots: Procedural Laxness in Disclosures and the Courtroom

The most profound understanding comes from stepping back and viewing the entire dig site.

A thematic link emerges between Judge Cannon’s handling of her own ethical disclosure procedures and her handling of courtroom procedures in high-profile cases.

Her tenure on the bench has been marked by a series of controversial and unorthodox procedural rulings, particularly in the criminal case involving former President Trump’s handling of classified documents.

Her decisions have drawn widespread criticism from legal experts across the political spectrum and, most notably, have been repeatedly and harshly reversed by the conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.¹⁸

The appellate court’s December 2022 rebuke of her decision to appoint a special master—a move it found to be a legally erroneous “reordering of jurisdiction”—was particularly sharp.¹¹

The pattern of failing to follow clear, established procedures for her own financial and ethical reporting runs parallel to the pattern of issuing controversial procedural rulings that higher courts have deemed to be legal errors.

This does not suggest a direct quid pro quo or a singular motive.

Rather, it points to a consistent behavioral approach: a willingness to disregard, creatively interpret, or fail to diligently apply established rules and norms, whether they govern her personal disclosures or the administration of justice in a case involving the president who appointed her.

This transforms the inquiry from one of simple finances to a more fundamental one of judicial temperament, impartiality, and respect for the very legal and ethical frameworks she is sworn to uphold.

Part V: Reconstructing the Mosaic: Beyond a Simple Number

The hunt for a simple number is over.

The archaeological dig at the Aileen Cannon site did not yield a precise net worth, but it unearthed something far more valuable: a detailed mosaic of a judge’s financial life, the ethical questions that surround it, and the deeply flawed system of public accountability in which it exists.

We cannot provide a definitive dollar figure, but we can reconstruct the key findings into a comprehensive portrait.

The following table synthesizes the artifacts unearthed from every layer of the investigation, providing the clearest possible picture of her financial profile and the controversies attached to it.

Table 1: Judge Aileen Cannon’s Financial Profile: An Archaeological Reconstruction

Item

Judicial Salary

Husband’s Salary (COO)

Vero Beach, FL Home

Key Largo, FL Apartment

Investments (Shares, etc.)

Liabilities (Mortgage)

Reimbursement: 2021 Montana Trip

Reimbursement: 2022 Montana Trip

Reimbursement: 2023 Scalia Banquet

In the end, the quest for “Aileen Cannon’s net worth” was a red herring.

The real story, unearthed piece by painstaking piece, is about a system of judicial accountability that is riddled with loopholes and a culture of lax compliance.

Her case is a masterclass in how this system fails.

It demonstrates how a combination of vague reporting rules, procedural missteps, and a lack of meaningful enforcement can obscure a public official’s financial ties and benefits from ideologically aligned groups.

The public’s confidence in an impartial judiciary does not rest on knowing a judge’s exact net worth.

It rests on the belief that judges are subject to, and meticulously follow, a clear and robust set of ethical rules.

This investigation reveals that for both this judge and the system at large, that belief may be misplaced.

The artifacts from this dig tell a story not of wealth, but of a troubling pattern of procedural carelessness that erodes the very foundation of public trust.

That is a liability far greater than any mortgage.

Works cited

1. Cannon, Aileen Mercedes – Federal Judicial Center |, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/cannon-aileen-mercedes
2. Federal Judicial Financial Disclosure Reports – United States Courts, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://pub.jefs.uscourts.gov/
3. ETHICS IN GOVERNMENT ACT OF 1978 – PUBLIC LAW 95-521, OCTOBER 26, 1978, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/ethics-government-act-1978-public-law-95-521-october-26-1978
4. Useful Financial Analogies (Rutgers NJAES), accessed on August 10, 2025, https://njaes.rutgers.edu/sshw/message/message.php?p=Finance&m=240
5. Aileen Cannon – Wikipedia, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Cannon
6. Aileen Cannon – Ballotpedia, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://ballotpedia.org/Aileen_Cannon
7. Deep Dive into Judge Aileen Cannon – CounterPunch.org, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/11/10/deep-dive-into-judge-aileen-cannon/
8. What Aileen Cannon’s Financial Disclosures Reveal – Newsweek, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/what-aileen-cannon-financial-disclosures-reveal-1817233
9. FInAnCIAl DISClOSure rePOrT, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-pdfs/2016/10011640.pdf
10. financial DiScloSure report, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-pdfs/2017/10017991.pdf
11. Judge Aileen Cannon Failed to Disclose a Right-Wing Junket – ProPublica, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://www.propublica.org/article/judge-aileen-cannon-trump-documents-case-travel-disclosures
12. Judge Aileen Cannon Failed to Disclose Attendance at Right-Wing Junkets | Truthout, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/judge-aileen-cannon-failed-to-disclose-attendance-at-right-wing-junkets/
13. At 40 Years Old, The Ethics in Government Act is in Need of a Tune-up, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://campaignlegal.org/update/40-years-old-ethics-government-act-need-tune
14. The Impact of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 – W&M Law School Scholarship Repository, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=3&article=1019&context=wmcl&type=additional
15. Financial Disclosures – Fix the Court, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://fixthecourt.com/fix/financial-disclosures/
16. Diving in to the Judiciary’s Financial Disclosure Failures | Fix the Court, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://fixthecourt.com/2023/12/diving-in-to-the-judiciarys-financial-disclosure-failures/
17. S.555 – Ethics in Government Act of 1978 95th Congress (1977-1978), accessed on August 10, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/bill/95th-congress/senate-bill/555
18. Aileen Cannon – Alliance for Justice, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://afj.org/nominee/aileen-cannon/
19. Judge Cannon Should Be Removed From Trump Case, Watchdog Group Argues in New Legal Filing – ProPublica, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://www.propublica.org/article/judge-aileen-cannon-trump-documents-case-ethics-complaint-crew-jack-smith