Judge dismisses Donald Trump’s charges over alleged mishandling of classified documents

A federal judge on Monday dismissed charges former President Donald Trump was facing for his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House, delivering a significant legal victory to him days after an attempt on his life and as he prepares to accept his party’s nomination for this year’s election at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

In a surprising ruling that ran contrary to decades of legal precedent on the matter, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon said that special counsel Jack Smith, whose office had brought the case, had been illegally appointed and that the circumstances under which he was named to the position did not comply with requirements laid out by the U.S. Constitution.

Because Smith had been selected for his position in 2022 by U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland — and not chosen by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate — his role in the case ran afoul of what is known as the Appointments Clause, she said. That portion of the Constitution sets out the process by which “officers of the United States” are to be named to their positions.

Smith’s position “effectively usurps that important legislative authority … and in the process threaten[s] the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers,” the judge wrote.

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The decision broke from previous rulings dating to the Watergate era in the 1970s by other federal courts that have scrutinized appointments of other independent prosecutors appointed by the Justice Department.

Under Cannon’s reasoning, cases brought by other special counsels — including Robert Mueller, who led the investigation into foreign interference in the 2016 election, and David Weiss, who is overseeing the prosecution of Hunter Biden, the president’s son — would also be invalid.

It was the latest in a series of unorthodox rulings from Cannon — whom Trump appointed to the federal bench in 2020 for the Southern District of Florida. Her methodical approach to handling the case and willingness to hear even the most seemingly far-fetched arguments from Trump’s lawyers have drawn criticism from legal experts and raised questions about her impartiality.

Smith’s declined to comment when approached by reporters Monday within hours of the judge releasing her 93-page opinion. Later in the day, a spokesman for Smith, Peter Carr, said the Justice Department had authorized an appeal.

“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,” Carr said in a statement.

Trump used the decision to call for the dismissal of the criminal charges filed against him in various jurisdictions over the last two years, denouncing them all as products of a Democratic witch hunt.

“Let us come together to END all Weaponization of our Justice System, and Make America Great Again!” he wrote in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The classified documents case — largely viewed as the most straightforward of the three remaining criminal cases lodged against Trump and the one that posed, perhaps, the greatest legal jeopardy for the former president — arose from a June 2023 grand jury indictment that accused him of taking several sensitive national security documents and classified papers with him when he left the White House at the end of his term in office.

Trump’s lawyers challenged several aspects of the prosecution.

In advancing the argument that Smith’s appointment was unlawful, they adopted a legal theory that has previously — and unsuccessfully — been deployed in attempts to undermine cases brought by other independent prosecutors appointed by the Justice Department.

For decades, DOJ officials have appointed special counsels under regulations citing the statutory authority granted to the Attorney General. That process has been upheld in several recent cases, including a 2019 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a case challenging Mueller’s appointment.

But in her opinion Monday, Cannon cited the lack of any federal law governing the appointment of special counsels and said that allowing them to operate solely under the attorney general’s authority violated the constitutional ideal of separation of powers.

“History reflects an ad hoc, inconsistent practice of naming prosecutors from both inside and outside of government (typically in response to national scandal) who possessed wildly variant degrees of power and autonomy,” Cannon said in her ruling. “The lack of consistency makes it near impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions about Congress’s approval of modern special counsels like Special Counsel Smith.”

She added: “If the political branches wish to grant the attorney general power to appoint Special Counsel Smith to investigate and prosecute this action, there is a valid means by which to do so.”

Cannon brushed off the D.C. appellate court’s findings in the Mueller case, calling them unpersuasive and suggesting the court had not meaningfully reckoned with recent developments in the law.

And in three separate instances, she cited an unusual concurring opinion that Associate Justice Clarence Thomas issued earlier this month as part of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity from prosecution.

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Trump’s lawyers had not raised questions around Smith’s appointment in that case, but Thomas seized on arguments questioning the special counsel’s appointment that had been advanced by conservative legal scholars. No other justices signed on to his opinion.

Smith’s team, during a hearing on the issue before Cannon last month, insisted that even if the judge were to rule in Trump’s favor, the correct remedy was not to dismiss the charges. Instead, Smith’s team suggested that the case could be reassigned to a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney to prosecute.

Cannon remained unconvinced. She maintained, in her ruling, that Smith had had plenty of opportunity already to make such a move and that she did not have to consider his alternative suggestions.

Despite the victory she handed Trump on Monday, the former president remains charged in two other criminal matters, neither of which is expected to reach trial before the November election.

A separate case brought by Smith’s office in federal court in Washington stems from Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including in Pennsylvania.

That case has been stalled for months and its future remains cloudy after the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, which curtailed what charges could be brought against a former president for actions taken while carrying out official duties. The decision also limited the evidence that could be used to prosecute ex-presidents for private actions.

» READ MORE: Trump indictment: Charges feature former president’s effort to subvert Pennsylvania election results

Trump also faces state charges in Georgia related to his efforts in 2020 to interfere with that state’s vote totals.

Trump’s lawyers are likely to use Cannon’s decision to invalidate Smith’s role in the Washington case. The Georgia prosecution, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is not likely to be affected by Monday’s ruling.