Judge throws out classified papers case against ex-president
THE legal case accusing Donald Trump of taking and keeping classified documents has been dismissed after a judge yesterday ruled that the appointment of the lawyer prosecuting him was unconstitutional.
The case, which was due to be heard in Florida, accused Mr Trump of taking classified material away from the White House and storing it at his Mar-a-lago home in Palm Beach after he left office in January 2020.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated by Mr 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 the former president, had previously been indefinitely postponed. However, the decision to dismiss it could now be overturned on appeal.
Responding to the decision, Mr 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 legal cases against him to also be dismissed next, ending the “weaponisation of our justice system”.
Judge Cannon was appointed to the bench by Mr Trump in his final year in the White House, and had been accused by Mr Smith’s team of being in the pocket of the former president.
The Trump legal team had argued that Mr 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 Mr Smith is also leading.
Prosecutors claimed that Mr Trump had violated the Espionage Act by inappropriately storing 32 sensitive documents at Mar-a-lago in Florida. If he were convicted, the offences carry a sentence of 20 years in prison.
A trial had originally been slated to begin on May 20 this year. However, the case has been mired in a variety of legal challenges and was not expected to be heard before the presidential election on Nov 5. If he won that election, Mr Trump could pardon himself of any federal convictions.
Judge Cannon’s ruling was highly unexpected and will almost certainly be appealed by the federal government.
Mr Trump’s lawyers had argued that because Mr 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 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 Mr Trump, came on the first day of the Republican convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mr Trump has changed his political strategy after he faced an assassination attempt on Saturday, and is calling for political unity in the United States.
The appeal was one of several made by Mr Trump’s legal team in the three remaining criminal cases that he faces. In May, he was convicted in the first of them, over the accounting behind “hush money” paid to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Previously, Mr Trump had claimed the cases, including the two prosecuted by Mr Smith, were a “witch hunt” brought by the federal government for political reasons.
Mr Smith’s team has opposed all of Mr 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 the former president. Evidence already released to the public shows boxes of documents that had been stored in a bathroom at Mar-a-lago. Mr 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 his own social media platform, Truth Social, Mr 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 weaponisation of our justice system, and Make America Great Again!”