Judge dismisses Trump documents case over special counsel appointment

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday dismissed the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump over the manner in which special counsel Jack Smith was appointed.

“The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” wrote Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by the former president. She said the Constitution gives only Congress or the president the authority to appoint a special counsel — not the U.S. Attorney General.

Smith had contested this argument, and other federal courts had upheld the constitutionality of special counsels. But Cannon's ruling, even in the likely event of an appeal, adds months to the case.

“None of the statutes cited as legal authority for the appointment…gives the Attorney General broad inferior-officer appointing power or bestows upon him the right to appoint a federal officer with the kind of prosecutorial power wielded by Special Counsel Smith," Cannon wrote. "Nor do the Special Counsel’s strained statutory arguments, appeals to inconsistent history, or reliance on out-of-circuit authority persuade otherwise.”

Her opinion closely tracked the reasoning outlined by conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a recent concurrence in a separate case against Trump.

The special counsel's case centered on Trump taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, keeping them in unsecured rooms like a ballroom and a bathroom, and then refusing to return them to the government.

The Department of Justice gave the special counsel the right to appeal the order, a spokesman for Smith said. An appeal would go to the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

"The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel," Peter Carr, the spokesman, said.

Trump applauded the dismissal and called for all other cases against him to also be dropped, including the criminal charges related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

"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," Trump posted on Truth Social. "The Democrat Justice Department coordinated ALL of these Political Attacks, which are an Election Interference conspiracy against Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, ME."

Trump's lawyers on the case declined further comment. The Justice Department had no immediate comment to the case's dismissal.