Former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case was dismissed Monday morning by a Florida judge.
Charges that Trump improperly possessed classified documents were wiped away by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who said special counsel Jack Smith was not properly appointed.
The Department of Justice is likely to appeal the ruling, according to The Washington Post.
The ruling came two days after Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania and as Republicans gathered in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention to formally nominate him as the party’s candidate for president.
“Former President Trump’s Motion to Dismiss Indictment Based on the Unlawful Appointment and Funding of Special Counsel Jack Smith is GRANTED,” Cannon wrote in her order.
“The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” the judge said.
🚨BREAKING: Judge Aileen Cannon has DISMISSED the Trump/classified documents case saying that Jack Smith’s appointment by Biden’s DOJ was unconstitutional. pic.twitter.com/hINiZW84DG
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 15, 2024
“Special Counsel Smith’s use of a permanent indefinite appropriation also violates the Appropriations Clause … but the Court need not address the proper remedy for that funding violation given the dismissal on Appointments Clause grounds. The effect of this Order is confined to this proceeding,” wrote Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020.
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“Both the Appointments and Appropriations challenges as framed in the Motion raise the following threshold question: is there a statute in the United States Code that authorizes the appointment of Special Counsel Smith to conduct this prosecution? After careful study of this seminal issue, the answer is no,” she said.
“The Special Counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a Head of Department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers,” the judge wrote.
“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,” Cannon said.
“The Framers gave Congress a pivotal role in the appointment of principal and inferior officers. That role cannot be usurped by the Executive Branch or diffused elsewhere—whether in this case or in another case, whether in times of heightened national need or not,” she wrote.
Cannon noted that a proliferation of special prosecutors has come with little oversight.
“In the end, it seems the Executive’s growing comfort in appointing ‘regulatory’ special counsels in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny,” she wrote.
In a Monday post on his Truth Social platform, 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, D.C., the Manhattan D.A.’s Zombie Case, the New York A.G. 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!” he said.
The documents case against Trump began with an August 2022 FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, in which boxes of documents were seized.
The former president was later indicted on multiple counts of improper possession of classified documents.
Smith is also the prosecutor in a case that charged Trump with election interference. The former president has said that his actions after the 2020 election were covered by presidential immunity.
A recent Supreme Court decision indicating Trump has immunity for official acts has forced that case back to lower courts to debate the immunity issue before he can face a trial on the charges against him.
