WASHINGTON — The judge presiding over the case over former President Donald Trump’s classified documents in Florida on Monday dismissed the indictment, siding with defense attorneys who claimed the special prosecutor in the case had been illegally appointed.
Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision brings an abrupt and stunning end to a criminal case once considered the most dangerous of all those hanging over the Republican former president. Trump faced dozens of charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, and obstructed FBI efforts to recover them.
Defense lawyers had filed multiple challenges to the case, including a technical legal claim that special counsel Jack Smith had been illegally appointed under the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause, which governs appointments to certain public offices, and that his office was illegally funded by the Justice Department.
Cannon, whose handling of the case had raised questions even before the charges were filed, agreed, writing in a 93-page letter: “The Framers of the Constitution gave Congress a fundamental role in the appointment of principal and subordinate officials. That role cannot be usurped by the Executive Branch nor can it be diluted by any other agency, whether in this case or any other case, whether in times of greatest national need or not.”
Smith’s team, as expected, strongly rejected that argument to Cannon last month, saying that even if the judge sides with the defense, the reversal should not amount to a dismissal of the entire case.
Former President and presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday called for all legal cases against him to be dropped after a Florida judge dismissed a case against the billionaire for mishandling classified documents.
The decision “to dismiss this illegal charge in Florida should be only the first step, followed quickly by the abandonment of ALL (capital letters in the message, editor’s note) witch hunts,” said Trump, who considers the judicial accusations against him to be persecution, on his social network Truth Social platform.
