In what was hailed as a “seismic development” for former President Donald Trump, a Florida judge just dismissed the classified documents case against him.
Judge Aileen Cannon found that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment violated the Constitution in a ruling on Monday.
“The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” she wrote in her 93-page ruling.
He did it. The inside straight. Full coverage on our show today. https://t.co/ZNrk8qb0Rn
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 15, 2024
“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,” the Florida-based U.S. District judge wrote.
(Video Credit: Fox News)
Cannon ruled that Smith, who was leading the prosecution of the case against Trump, was not lawfully appointed and thus, lacked the authority to bring the case at all.
“The dismissal of the classified documents case is a seismic development,” Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law School professor, wrote on X. “From the beginning of all of these cases, I have said that the Mar-a-Lago case was the greatest threat to the former president. It is now dismissed.”
Indeed, the stunning development follows the U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this month on presidential immunity. And it comes on the heels of a history-making weekend as the former president became the target of an assassin at his Pennsylvania rally.
“Upon careful study of the foundational challenges raised in the Motion, the Court is convinced that Special Counsel’s Smith’s prosecution of this action breaches two structural cornerstones of our constitutional scheme—the role of Congress in the appointment of constitutional officers, and the role of Congress in authorizing expenditures by law,” Cannon wrote.
The case centered on Trump’s alleged holding of sensitive national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida after he left the White House. He was also accused of obstructing government officials who tried to retrieve the documents in question.
“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,” Cannon wrote in her ruling Monday.
Boxes case dismissed! #DerangedJackSmith pic.twitter.com/VU9yS6kWpK
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) July 15, 2024
“In the case of inferior officers, that means that Congress is empowered to decide if it wishes to vest appointment power in a Head of Department, and indeed, Congress has proven itself quite capable of doing so in many other statutory contexts,” she added. “But it plainly did not do so here, despite the Special Counsel’s strained statutory readings.”
Smith is still leading the prosecution of Trump in federal court in Washington on allegations that he tried to overturn the 2020 election.
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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