Judge dismisses Trump's classified documents case, finds Jack Smith's appointment 'unlawful'

FORT PIERCE — The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's classified documents case dismissed the charges against him Monday.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed. She wrote that everything that followed his "defective appointment" — including the 40-count indictment against Trump — were unlawful exercises of executive power and "must be unwound."

Her decision hinged on the fact that Smith was not nominated by the president or confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He was instead appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Nov. 18, 2022 to serve as a special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Multiple Supreme Court rulings have held that the attorney general has the statutory authority to appoint a special counsel and delegate prosecutorial authority to him. Despite this, Cannon wrote that Garland didn’t have the right to bestow “the kind of prosecutorial power” wielded by Smith.

More: Read the judge's order dismissing Donald Trump's classified documents case

In appointing him, she said Garland usurped legislative authority from congress and threatened the separation-of-powers doctrine in the process. Cannon said that while congress is capable of giving Garland the power necessary to appoint a special counsel, it “plainly did not do so here.”

She added that neither Smith’s “strained statutory arguments, appeals to inconsistent history, nor reliance on out-of-circuit authority" could persuade her otherwise.

A higher court may reverse Cannon's decision, as has already happened once before. After the FBI seized records from Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Cannon granted Trump's request to have a retired judge review the documents for potential personal records. Her decision temporarily prevented investigators from scrutinizing them.

An appeals court initially overturned part of Cannon's order before overturning it in its entirety.

Who is Aileen Cannon? Five things to know about Trump-appointed judge overseeing classified documents case

The judge's decision is the latest in a series of legal victories for Trump, including a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gives presidents broad protections for their actions while in office. It also carries major political ramifications, as it comes on the opening day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Trump faced dozens of felony charges, including willful retention of national defense information and conspiring to obstruct justice. Faced with years in federal prison for hoarding classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump maintained that the only thing he's guilty of is being Biden's "chief political rival."

Trump had asked Cannon several times before to dismiss the charges and cut short what he and his supporters have deemed a vindictive prosecution. Trump is the only former president or vice president prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice for mishandling classified documents.

He is also the only one to engage in a "multifaceted scheme of deception and obstruction" to thwart those documents' safe return, according to prosecutors. Smith said Trump told his lawyer to destroy the documents or lie about their whereabouts to FBI agents and a grand jury.

Investigators also believe Trump enlisted his body man and codefendant Waltine Nauta to hide boxes of classified documents. When the government subpoenaed the security-camera footage from the property, prosecutors say Nauta and codefendant Carlos De Oliveira tried to get Mar-a-Lago's IT manager to delete the footage, at Trump's instruction.

Like Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira pleaded not guilty to all charges against them. Cannon's order dismissing the case applies to them, too.

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Judge Cannon dropped classified documents charges against Trump