Florida judge dismisses criminal classified documents case against Trump
US district judge Aileen Cannon makes ruling after hearing in which Trump’s legal team urged her to drop charges
Donald Trump’s criminal case on charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club was dismissed on Monday after a federal judge sided with the former president and ruled that the special counsel who brought the prosecution had been improperly appointed.
The stunning decision by Aileen Cannon, the US district judge appointed by Trump, found that the appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel violated the US constitution as he had not been named to his post by the president or confirmed by the Senate.
a man in a suit with a red baseball cap speaks with his hands outstretched
Democrats react to dismissal of Trump classified documents case: ‘breathtakingly misguided’
Read more
Cannon effectively ruled that there was no statute that authorized a special counsel to bring charges in the Trump case, and previous court rulings – including by the US supreme court in the landmark Richard Nixon case – were not binding on her decision.
“Because Special Counsel Smith’s exercise of prosecutorial power has not been authorized by law, the court sees no way forward aside from dismissal of the superseding indictment,” Cannon wrote in the 93-page decision.
The ruling cast aside previous court decisions that upheld the use of special prosecutors stretching back to the Watergate era, and removed a major legal threat to Trump on the opening day of the Republican national convention, where he is set to accept the GOP nomination for president.
Prosecutors are expected to challenge the ruling at the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit, and could ask the appeals court to reassign the case to a different federal judge in Florida if Cannon’s decision is overturned.
“The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel. The Justice Department has authorized the Special Counsel to appeal,” a spokesperson for Smith said in a statement.
- DFM July 1, 2024, 6:16 pm