Former US President Donald Trump after the verdict was read at Manhattan criminal court in New York, US, on May 30. A judge has thrown out another case against Trump, which was due to be heard in Florida. Photo / via Getty Images
Former US President Donald Trump after the verdict was read at Manhattan criminal court in New York, US, on May 30. A judge has thrown out another case against Trump, which was due to be heard in Florida. Photo / via Getty Images
Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case against Donald Trump over classified documents.
Cannon ruled the special prosecutor Jack Smith’s appointment unconstitutional.
The dismissal could be appealed, as it significantly aids Trump’s political stance.
The legal case accusing Donald Trump of taking classified documents has been dismissed after a judge ruled that the appointment of the lawyer prosecuting him was unconstitutional.
On Monday, Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated by Trump, agreed with the former president’s legal team that the appointment of Jack Smith as a special prosecutor was unconstitutional.
“The superseding indictment is dismissed because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” she wrote.
The case, which is one of four pending against Trump, had previously been indefinitely postponed. The decision to dismiss it could now be overturned on appeal.
A screenshot of a US Department of Justice Mar-a-Lago search warrant showing boxes of classified documents located in a storage room.
Responding to the decision, Trump referenced the attempt on his life at the weekend, saying it was the “first step” in his mission of “uniting the nation after the horrific events of Saturday”.
He called for the other cases against him to be dismissed next, ending the “weaponisation of our justice system”.
Judge Cannon was appointed to the bench by Trump in his final year in office, and had been accused by Smith’s team of being in the pocket of the former president.
Trump’s legal team argued that Smith’s office was unconstitutional, because he has too much independence from the federal Justice Department that appointed him.
The judge said that her ruling only applies in the classified documents case, and not in the election interference case in Washington that Smith is also leading.
A trial had originally been slated to begin on May 20. However, the case has been mired in a variety of legal challenges, and was not expected to be heard before the presidential election on November 5.
If he won the election, Trump could pardon himself of any federal convictions.
Judge Cannon’s ruling is highly unexpected, and will almost certainly be appealed by the government in a higher court.
Trump’s lawyers argued that because Smith was not named as a special counsel in the case by the president, or confirmed by the Senate, the appointment violated a clause of the US constitution that governs public appointments.
The ruling appeared to conflict with previous decisions on the appointments of independent prosecutors by the Department of Justice.
Judge Cannon’s decision, which is a major political boost for Trump, came on the first day of the Republican convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trump has changed his political strategy after he faced an assassination attempt on Saturday, and is calling for political unity in the US.
The appeal was one of several legal appeals made by Trump’s legal team in the three remaining criminal cases against him. In May he was convicted in the first case, over “hush money” paid to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Previously, Trump had claimed that the cases against him, including the two prosecuted by Smith, were a “witch hunt” brought by the federal government for political reasons.
Smith’s team has opposed all of Trump’s appeals, which have been interpreted as an attempt to delay the trial beyond this year’s election.
The classified documents case was considered one of the most legally dangerous for Trump. Evidence already released to the public shows boxes of documents that had been stored in a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has denied wrongdoing.
The case was brought against the former president and two “co-conspirators”: Waltine Nauta, a valet, and Carlos de Oliveira, his property manager.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump said: “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 – The January 6th hoax in Washington DC, the Manhattan DA’s zombie case, the New York AG Scam, fake claims about a woman I never met (a decades old photo in a line with her then husband does not count), and the Georgia “perfect” phone call charges.
“The Democrat Justice Department coordinated all of these political attacks, which are an election interference conspiracy against Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, me. Let us come together to end all weaponization of our justice system, and Make America Great Again!”
