Judge Cannon dismisses classified documents case against Trump in Florida
WASHINGTON — Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed a federal case against former President Donald Trump over his handling of highly classified documents in Florida, ruling that the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel to prosecute the case was in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Trump stood accused of taking some of the most secret documents in the U.S. government’s possession to his Florida home after leaving the White House in 2021, and then scheming to keep them from investigators attempting to recover them.
The special counsel, Jack Smith, has the ability to appeal the case, which had been bogged down by delays in Cannon’s courtroom for over a year before her dismissal order on Monday.
In her order, Cannon wrote the indictment was dismissed “because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.”
Her argument echoes a Supreme Court concurring opinion written in a recent case before the U.S. Supreme Court by Justice Clarence Thomas — joined by no other justices on the high court — in which he stated he was ““not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been ‘established by Law.’”
“In this case, the Attorney General purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States,” Thomas wrote. “Questions remain as to whether the Attorney General filled that office in compliance with the Appointments Clause.”
The constitutionality of special counsels has repeatedly been tested and upheld in other courts. Challenges to special prosecutors that have investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, have all been dismissed.
But Cannon took a novel approach to the former president’s legal argument, scheduling days of hearing and opening up the hearing to testimony from third parties to the case — a rarity in federal trial court.
Critics of Cannon have questioned her tactics throughout the trial, in which she spent months deliberating over simple pretrial motions.
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit would consider any appellate motion filed by Smith. But the case is even less likely than it was before to reach trial, now that it has been dismissed, before the 2024 presidential election, where Trump is currently favored to win back the White House.
Cannon has served as the U.S. district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida since being appointed by Trump in 2020.