Judge tosses Trump classified documents case, ruling prosecutor unlawfully appointed
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Donald Trump's lawyers argued Mr Jack Smith's office was not created by Congress, and Mr Smith was not confirmed by the Senate.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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WASHINGTON – A judge on July 15 dismissed the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of illegally holding on to classified documents
In a 93-page ruling, Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated by Trump, ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the prosecution, was unlawfully appointed to his role and did not have the authority to bring the case.
She did not rule on whether Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents was proper.
“In the end, it seems the Executive’s growing comfort in appointing ‘regulatory’ special counsel in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny,” Judge Cannon wrote.
The ruling marked another blockbuster legal victory for Trump, following the July 1 Supreme Court ruling that, as a former president, he enjoyed immunity from prosecution for many of his actions in office.
The ruling by Judge Cannon comes on the first day of the Republican National Convention, and two days after Trump survived an assassination attempt
Even though a trial before the presidential election was considered highly unlikely, many legal experts had viewed the classified documents case as the strongest one of the four cases that were pending against the former president.
Prosecutors are likely to appeal against the ruling.
Courts in other cases have repeatedly upheld the ability of the US Justice Department to appoint special counsel to handle certain politically sensitive investigations.
But Judge Cannon’s ruling throws the future of the case, which once posed serious legal peril for Trump, into doubt.
Mr Smith is also prosecuting Trump in federal court in Washington over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
In the documents case, Trump was indicted on charges that he wilfully retained sensitive national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago social club after leaving office and obstructed government efforts to retrieve the material.
Two others – Trump’s personal aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira – were also charged with obstructing the investigation.
Trump’s lawyers challenged the legal authority in Attorney-General Merrick Garland’s 2022 decision to appoint Mr Smith to lead investigations into Trump.
They argued that the appointment violated the US Constitution because his office was not created by Congress, and he was not confirmed by the Senate.
Lawyers in Mr Smith’s office disputed Trump’s claims, arguing there was a well-settled practice of using special counsel to manage politically sensitive investigations.
But Judge Cannon said in her order that the special counsel’s position “effectively usurps” Congress’ “important legislative authority” by giving it to the head of a department – the Justice Department, in this case – to appoint such an official.
“If the political branches wish to grant the Attorney-General power to appoint Special Counsel Smith to investigate and prosecute this action with the full powers of a United States Attorney, there is a valid means by which to do so,” she wrote.
Judge Cannon said in her ruling that the Justice Department “could reallocate funds to finance the continued operation of Special Counsel Smith’s office”, but said it is not yet clear whether a newly brought case would pass legal muster.
“For more than 18 months, Special Counsel Smith’s investigation and prosecution (have) been financed by substantial funds drawn from the Treasury without statutory authorisation, and to try to rewrite history at this point seems near impossible,” she ruled.
“The court has difficulty seeing how a remedy short of dismissal would cure this substantial separation-of-powers violation, but the answers are not entirely self-evident, and the case law is not well developed,” she said.
She noted in her ruling that Mr Smith’s team “suggested” at a court hearing on the matter that they could restructure the office’s funding to satisfy her concerns.
The ruling is the latest and most consequential in a series of decisions from Judge Cannon favouring Trump’s defence and expressing scepticism about the conduct of prosecutors.
The judge previously delayed a trial indefinitely, while considering a flurry of Trump’s legal challenges.
In an unusual move, she allowed three outside lawyers, including two who sided with Trump, to argue during a court hearing focused on Trump’s challenge to Mr Smith’s appointment.
Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas also provided a boost to Trump’s challenge to the special counsel.
In an opinion agreeing with the court’s decision to grant Trump broad immunity in the election case, Justice Thomas questioned whether Mr Smith’s appointment was lawful, using similar arguments to those made by Trump’s lawyers.
Mr Garland appointed Mr Smith, a public corruption and international war crimes prosecutor, to give investigations into Trump a degree of independence from the Justice Department under US President Joe Biden. REUTERS, CNN
