Federal judge Aileen Cannon ordered the court case against former President of the United States Donald Trump to be dismissed, in which he was accused of illegally possessing confidential documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago, in the state of Florida.
The decision was announced this Monday and publicized by several international media outlets.
The lawsuit was brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, but Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Smith’s appointment violates the country’s Constitution.
“In the end, it appears that the executive branch’s growing comfort with appointing ‘regulatory’ special advisors in the more recent era has followed an ‘ad hoc’ pattern with little judicial scrutiny,” Cannon wrote.
At issue are confidential documents that the former president and current Republican presidential candidate would have taken with him after leaving the White House in January 2021.
Part of this documentation was confiscated by the FBI during searches of Trump’s property in Florida in August last year.
This is one of four criminal cases brought against Trump, and included dozens of charges related to the illegal retention of confidential documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump was also accused of obstructing the FBI’s efforts to obtain this material, declared himself innocent and denied all illegalities.
Defense attorneys filed several challenges to the case, including a technical-legal one that claimed that special prosecutor Jack Smith had been illegally appointed under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, since he was appointed by the U.S. attorney general. , Merrick Garland, instead of being confirmed by Congress, and that his office had been improperly funded by the Department of Justice.
Cannon, whose handling of the case drew scrutiny, agreed with the tycoon’s defense in a 93-page order in which he argued that the Constitution “gave Congress a central role in nominating officers” and that this “role may not be usurped by the Executive Branch “, whether “in this case or another, whether in times of greatest national need or not.”
Jack Smith’s team vigorously challenged the argument during hearings before Cannon last month and told the judge that even if the ruling was in favor of the defense team, the appropriate decision would not be to dismiss the entire case.
This is the first time that one of the four criminal cases against Trump has been completely dismissed.
Prosecutors may also appeal the decision.
In other cases, courts have repeatedly upheld the U.S. Justice Department’s ability to appoint special counsels to handle certain politically sensitive investigations.
Leave a Reply