top of page
Staff Writer

Trump Prosecution Dismissed

In a stunning legal twist, a federal judge has dismissed the high-profile prosecution of former President Donald Trump over classified documents, citing constitutional issues with Special Counsel Jack Smith's appointment.


A federal judge in Florida dismissed the prosecution of former President Donald Trump in the “documents” case on Monday. Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith had not been appointed in a constitutional or lawful manner.


Judge Cannon granted the defense motion, noting that Smith, who was neither confirmed by the U.S. Senate nor a U.S. Attorney at the time of his appointment, could not lawfully bring the indictment against Trump in federal court.


“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,” Cannon wrote, according to a CNN report.


In her opinion, Judge Cannon elaborated:


> "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. Perhaps this can be traced back to reliance on stray dictum in Nixon that perpetuated in subsequent cases. Perhaps it can be justified practically by the urgency of national crises. Or perhaps it can be explained by the relative infrequency of these types of investigations, by congressional inattention, or by the important roles that special-counsel-like figures have played in our country’s history. Regardless of the explanation, the present Motion requires careful analysis of the statutory landscape to ensure compliance with the Constitution, and the Court has endeavored to do so with care.

>

> The Court thus returns to where it started. The Appointments Clause is ‘among the significant structural safeguards of the constitutional scheme.’ Edmond, 520 U.S. at 659. So too is the Appropriations Clause, which carefully separates Congressional control of the ‘purse’ from Executive control of the ‘sword.’ The Federalist No. 78 (Alexander Hamilton). The consequences of relaxing either of those critical provisions are serious, both in this case and beyond. As Justice Frankfurter explained in his opinion in Youngstown, ‘[t]he accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.’ Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 594 (1952) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). ‘[I]llegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing ... by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure.’ Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 635 (1886)."


This significant development occurred on the first morning of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, adding to an already charged atmosphere following Trump’s attempted assassination on Saturday.


Many conservatives believe that the multiple prosecutions — two federal, two state — and civil actions against Trump have contributed to a climate of hatred that might have encouraged the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.


Legal analysts had considered the “documents” case to be the strongest against Trump, as he did not have the immunity of office at the time of the alleged conduct.


With the dismissal of this case, the broader legal campaign against Trump, often termed “lawfare,” appears weakened. Trump was previously convicted in Manhattan of falsifying business records, but many observers have regarded that prosecution as unlawful and the judge as biased, suggesting a likely appeal.


As Breitbart News reported in early June, Cannon had scheduled a hearing on the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment, an issue raised by the defense and various amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs.


Last month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in a concurring opinion in Fischer v. United States — a case criticizing the Department of Justice for prosecuting January 6th defendants under a statute about witness tampering — that Smith’s appointment was likely unconstitutional. Smith addressed Thomas’s arguments in an unrelated filing last week, raising legal eyebrows.


Democrats and media pundits criticized Judge Cannon for hearing arguments on Smith’s appointment, with some organizing mass campaigns to file ethics complaints against her. They have accused Cannon of bias in Trump’s favor due to his appointment of her. However, more neutral observers have commended her attention to detail and refusal to uncritically endorse Smith’s prosecution and methods.


Smith was working as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague before his appointment. He had been a U.S. Attorney in Nashville, Tennessee, during the Obama administration but resigned in the first year of the Trump administration.


Smith brought charges against Trump in Florida, alleging that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office. Judge Cannon found it concerning that Smith convened a grand jury in Washington, D.C. — a jurisdiction known for its anti-Trump sentiment — rather than in Florida.


It is unclear if Cannon’s ruling affects Smith’s separate prosecution of Trump for January 6-related charges in Washington.


The dismissal of the “documents” case marks the end of one of the most extraordinary and controversial prosecutions in American history, which began with an unprecedented armed raid on Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022.

bottom of page