Another Favorable Twist for Trump in His Legal Saga

The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s classified documents trial dismissed the case Monday morning on the grounds that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional.

Trump had been accused of hoarding highly sensitive national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and then obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, said in her ruling that Smith’s appointment was “unlawful” and in violation of the appointments clause of the Constitution.

The news came on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and two days after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. Trump praised Cannon’s decision in a post on his Truth Social account referencing the violent shooting.

“As we move forward in Uniting our Nation after the horrific events on Saturday, this dismissal of the Lawless indictment in Florida should be just the first step, followed quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts,” Trump wrote.

He went on to reference the many other civil and criminal charges that have been levied against him over the past years, calling them “coordinated…Political Attacks” that together constitute an “Election Interference conspiracy.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special counsel in November 2022, assigning him to oversee the federal investigation into Trump’s handling and retention of classified documents after he left office.

Trump’s lawyers argued that the appointments clause of the Constitution “does not permit the Attorney General to appoint, without Senate confirmation, a private citizen and like-minded political ally to wield the prosecutorial power of the United States. As such, Jack Smith lacks the authority to prosecute this action.” Judge Cannon agreed.

A federal law authorizing the appointment of independent counsels expired in 1999, so according to the logic of Cannon’s ruling, the appointment of several special prosecutors by the Justice Department in the last 25 years would be invalidated.

The Justice Department lacks a legal basis to bring private lawyers into the department to lead special counsel investigations, says Cannon. Such logic would have forbidden the appointment of Robert Mueller, who headed up the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as that of Robert Hur, chosen last year to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.

Special counsels named from the Justice Department’s existing roster of prosecutors would not have been impacted.

“At most, the history reflects an ad hoc, inconsistent practice of naming prosecutors from both inside and outside of government (typically in response to national scandal) who possessed wildly variant degrees of power and autonomy. The lack of consistency makes it near impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions about Congress’s approval of modern special counsels like Special Counsel Smith,” Judge Cannon wrote.

The ruling prompted cutting criticism from some congressional Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Calling the ruling “breathtakingly misguided,” Schumer urged Smith to appeal it and demanded that the case be assigned to a different judge.

“This is further evidence that Judge Cannon cannot handle this case impartially and must be reassigned,” Schumer wrote in a post on X.

The trial was unlikely to proceed before the end of the year, but Cannon’s ruling now ensures that to be the case. Many believe that Trump will dissolve the case altogether if he wins the 2024 election, especially given the recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Cannon’s ruling is the latest favorable twist for Trump in his legal saga. Though he was convicted on 34 felony charges in his New York hush money trial, his sentencing was postponed following the presidential immunity ruling. That same Supreme Court ruling will cause delays in another case brought by Smith, which charged Trump with plotting to overturn the 2020 election results. The fourth criminal case facing Trump also concerns the 2020 election. Filed by prosecutors in Atlanta, proceedings were stopped in their tracks after revelations of a romantic relationship between the district attorney and a special prosecutor.

Trump has styled himself a “political prisoner” of a Democrat-led Justice Department. Around 45% of Americans agree, saying the investigations are unfair and obstruct his 2024 presidential campaign, according to a PBS/NPR/Marist poll. With Cannon’s ruling, Trump has one less legal attack to worry about – for now.