US judge dismisses classified documents prosecution against Donald Trump
A US federal judge has dismissed the classified documents prosecution against Donald Trump, siding with the former president’s argument that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed.
A US federal judge has dismissed the classified documents prosecution against Donald Trump, siding with the former president’s argument that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida said on Monday federal law didn’t authorise Mr Smith to conduct the prosecution.
No legal authority “gives the Attorney General broad inferior-officer appointing power or bestows upon him the right to appoint a federal officer with the kind of prosecutorial power wielded by Special Counsel Smith”, the judge wrote in the 93-page ruling.
The indictment had charged Mr Trump with 40 felony counts alleging he willfully kept classified material after he left the White House and obstructed the government’s repeated efforts to get it back.
Mr Trump, who survived an assassination attempt on Saturday, welcomed the ruling.
“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,” he wrote in a social-media post, referring to the three other criminal cases he faces.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mr Smith, said the special counsel would appeal against the decision, which “deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorised to appoint a special counsel”.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Mr Smith in November 2022 to oversee the Justice Department’s Trump probes, shortly after the former president announced he would run again against President Joe Biden.
The decision marks a surprise twist after a year of court proceedings that have been unpredictable – and slow-moving – from the start.
Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee confirmed in 2020, had given the former president’s legal team considerable room to make legal arguments challenging the validity of the charges, prompting repeated frustration from prosecutors and criticism from legal experts.
The dismissal also is the latest in a series of developments that have significantly boosted the legal fortunes of Mr Trump, who will formally accept the Republican presidential nomination this week at the GOP convention in Milwaukee.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that former presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for their acts while in office.
That decision imperils Mr Smith’s other prosecution of Mr Trump on charges he sought to subvert the 2020 election, and could also have consequences for the two state criminal cases he still faces.
A Manhattan jury in May found Mr Trump guilty on 34 counts for falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star. His sentencing has been postponed until September while the presiding judge considers whether the Supreme Court decision affects that case.
In addition to finding Mr Smith’s appointment invalid, Judge Cannon’s Monday decision also said congress never authorised the appropriation of money for the expenses of Mr Smith’s office. The ruling didn’t address the merits of the allegations against Mr Trump.
The government had argued there was plenty of historical support for the validity of Mr Smith’s special counsel appointment and said several provisions in federal law established the Attorney General’s right to make it.
Judge Cannon disagreed, saying the history showed at most “an ad hoc, inconsistent practice of naming prosecutors from both inside and outside of government…who possessed wildly variant degrees of power and autonomy”.
The judge said she wasn’t persuaded by a pair of previous rulings by a US appeals court in Washington that rejected challenges to earlier special counsels based on language in a Nixon-era Supreme Court decision. Her ruling echoed concerns raised by Justice Clarence Thomas in concurring opinion he wrote in the Trump immunity case that questioned the legality of Mr Smith’s role.
“If there is no law establishing the office that the special counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution,” Justice Thomas wrote.
Mr Smith, who brought the documents prosecution in June 2023, alleged that Mr Trump, after leaving the White House, held on to information about US and foreign defence and weapons capabilities, US nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the US and its allies to military attack, and plans for a possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.
Prosecutors also said he enlisted staff at his South Florida residence and private resort to delete surveillance footage showing boxes being moved around the property so it couldn’t be turned over to a grand jury.
Mr Trump was charged alongside his personal aide, Walt Nauta, and Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker on the property.
Mr De Oliveira’s lawyer John Irving said the case “has been absurd from the start”. Mr Nauta’s lawyer declined to comment.
The case already was nowhere near going to trial, and Monday’s dismissal means the government faces a potentially long road in trying to revive the prosecution. But the decision also presents potential benefits for prosecutors because they can move on from Judge Cannon to a higher court.
Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor, said the decision could help Mr Smith’s team by allowing the special counsel to ask an appeals court to remove Judge Cannon from the case.
“The problem all along for Jack Smith is that she has been giving adverse rulings to the government and delaying rulings one after another, but nothing that was truly appealable. This is,” Mr Zeidenberg said.
“He’s biding his time, I think, for the right vehicle to appeal and to move to have her recused, and I think this is that vehicle.”
Any appeal would go to the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Atlanta. Judge Cannon’s future service in the case would only become a relevant issue if the appeals court rules she was wrong to dismiss the case.
If Mr Trump wins the White House in November, there is a strong possibility his Justice Department could drop any further legal action.
Judge Cannon was under scrutiny even before she was assigned the Trump prosecution. She previously presided over a civil lawsuit Mr Trump brought over the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022 as part of the documents investigation.
Judge Cannon granted Mr Trump’s request for a third-party review of the recovered documents, disrupting the investigation until a three-judge 11th Circuit panel overturned her.
Aaron Zitner contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
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