Judge dismisses case against Donald Trump for allegedly stealing sensitive government documents

One of the criminal cases against Donald Trump, widely regarded as the most perilous he has faced, has been sensationally dismissed.

A judge in the United States has sensationally dismissed the criminal case against former president Donald Trump for allegedly stealing sensitive government documents and storing them, illegally, at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Mr Trump in 2020, issued the ruling on Monday morning, local time, after a petition from the former president’s legal team to have the charges against him dropped.

Judge Cannon said the appointment of a special counsel, Jack Smith, to oversee the case had violated the Appointments Clause of the US Constitution.

“Is there a statute in the United States Code that authorises the appointment of Special Counsel Smith to conduct this prosecution? After careful study of this seminal issue, the answer is no,” she said.

“The bottom line is this: the Appointments Clause is a critical constitutional restriction stemming from the separation of powers, and it gives to Congress a considered role in determining the propriety of vesting appointment power.”

Judge Cannon said the government had “usurped” that “important legislative authority”.

Judge Aileen Cannon. Picture: AFP

The ruling came as something of a surprise, given the same issue has been litigated in previous cases and, in those cases, the appointment of other special counsels, under the same process, was found to have been legal.

There is no law on America’s books that establishes the role of a special counsel; instead, they are appointed by the nation’s attorney-general – Mr Smith was handed the role by the current Attorney-General, Merrick Garland.

Mr Trump’s team argued before Judge Cannon that the special counsel role should be established by law, and individual appointments should be confirmed by Congress.

Before Judge Cannon, eight federal judges had considered the issue. All eight ruled that attorneys-general could, in fact, legally appoint special counsels. She ultimately agreed with Mr Trump’s lawyers.

Her decision was released less than 48 hours after the attempted assassination of Mr Trump at a political rally in Pennsylvania.

Prosecutors are expected to appeal, which could ultimately see the issue come before the US Supreme Court.

What the case involved

The classified documents case, as it came to be known, was widely seen as the most perilous of Mr Trump’s various criminal indictments.

Prosecutors allege that, when he left the White House at the end of his first term in 2021, Mr Trump took boxes full of sensitive documents, some of them highly classified, to his personal residence at Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, where they were not stored securely.

According to prosecutors, the documents in question were the government’s property, not his, and should have been stored at a secure facility. Instead, they were allegedly kept in various rooms at the resort, including a bathroom, the basement and Mr Trump’s office.

Some documents also ended up at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he was recorded showing them off to guests.

The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022, and allegedly found boxes full of sensitive documents, some of which bore markings indicating they were highly classified.

Donald Trump. Picture: Yuki Iwamura/AFP

Mr Trump was later charged with 31 counts of wilful retention of national defence information, and one count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations.

The indictment, now dismissed by Judge Cannon, alleged that Mr Trump failed to return the documents when repeatedly asked, showed some of them to people who lacked the necessary security clearances, defied a subpoena, and lied to investigators, falsely claiming he had in fact returned all the relevant material when documents remained in his possession.

‘Seismic development’

Jonathan Turley, a legal analyst for Fox News and law professor at George Washington University, described the dismissal of the case as a “seismic development”.

“From the beginning of all these cases, I have said that the Mar-a-Lago case was the greatest threat to the former president. It is now dismissed,” he posted on Twitter.

“There are good faith arguments on both sides of this question but even critics must acknowledge that anomaly of having a constitutionally mandated process for US attorneys, but then allow an ad hoc system of unilateral appointments for special counsels.

“This opinion is still an outlier among the courts that have reviewed the question.

“Of all of the cases that Trump would want to see dismissed, this is the one.”

ABC News’ chief legal analyst, Dan Abrams, suggested that - in one of politics’ little ironies - Judge Cannon’s reasoning would require the recent case against Joe Biden’s son Hunter to be thrown out as well.

“It’s pretty radical that Judge Cannon has thrown out the documents case on the same grounds that have been rejected repeatedly, including in challenging Robert Mueller,” he said.

Mr Mueller was the special counsel appointed by Mr Trump’s justice department to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. That investigation ultimately resulted in a series of convictions.

Donald Trump. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck described the ruling as “wrong six ways from Sunday” and predicted it would be “immediately appealed”.

Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan and legal analyst for MSNBC, suggested Judge Cannon’s decision might actually help prosecutors in the long term.

“(Smith) can now immediately appeal to the 11th Circuit and ask for the case to be reassigned to a new judge. But more delay,” she tweeted.

“Look, I think it’s a terrible decision,” she then said on MSNBC.

“I think it’s absolutely wrong on the merits. But going forward I think this could actually be a blessing in disguise ... this is one (decision) where it is immediately appealable, and I think she is so clearly wrong on the law that the 11th Circuit will reverse it.”

Noah Rosenblum, an expert in legal history and assistant professor at NYUK, said he had previously been “suspicious” of “extreme rhetoric” accusing Judge Cannon of favouring Mr Trump in her rulings.

“Now I feel very naive. This is bonkers. She is just making things up,” he said.

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard, said the judge had done “the unthinkable” by dismissing the case on a basis “repeatedly rejected” by other courts.

“The Department of Justice must appeal right away,” he said, pointing out that only one of the nine Supreme Court justices took the same view as Judge Cannon in their recent ruling on the question of presidential immunity.

“This finally gives Jack Smith an opportunity to seek her removal from the case. I think the case for doing so is very strong.”

To put it tritely, the legal argument here is likely to continue.