Washington – of Federal Judge Prosecutors investigating former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified government documents after he left the White House have dropped charges against him and two co-defendants.
In a 93-page order, U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon said she granted Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment on grounds of illegal funding and appointment of special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges against former President Trump.
“The bottom line is this: the Appointments Clause is an important constitutional constraint arising from the separation of powers and gives Congress a deliberate role in determining the appropriateness of granting appointment power to lower-level officials,” wrote Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by President Trump. “The special counsel position effectively strips that important legislative power and places it in the hands of the head of an agency, threatening in the process the structural freedoms inherent in the separation of powers.”
The former president 40 charges The charges stem from his alleged handling of classified documents after leaving office and his obstruction of a Justice Department investigation. The former president and his aides, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, were indicted in a plot to obstruct the federal investigation, but all three have pleaded not guilty.
Smith’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CBS News has also reached out to lawyers for the former president and Nauta.
“We of course agree with the court’s decision, but this lawsuit was unreasonable from the start, and Carlos should never have been subjected to unreasonable treatment had the government not put him in this situation,” lawyers for de Oliveira’s Mar-a-Lago property management company said in a statement.
The decision can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and then to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The dismissal of this lawsuit Assassination attempt On Saturday, Trump said he was hit by a bullet while addressing supporters at a rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania. The shooter, identified by the FBI as a 20-year-old, Thomas Matthew Crookeswas killed by the Secret Service.
Trump is set to formally accept Republican Presidential Nomination With the party’s convention starting Monday in Milwaukee.
In his order, Judge Cannon said Smith’s appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution and his use of a “permanent open-ended budget” violated the Budget Clause. Given his decision to dismiss the case on Appointments Clause grounds, he wrote that there was no need for a remedy for the funding violations.
The judge wrote that if the political branch wanted to give the attorney general the power to appoint Smith and investigate and prosecute Trump with the powers of a United States attorney, there were valid ways for him to do so: Smith could be appointed and confirmed through the Appointments Clause or Congress could authorize the appointment through constitutional legislation.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to oversee two federal investigations into the former president in 2022. Garland at the time, and Smith’s prosecution team, argued that legal and historical precedents allow for the appointment of an independent counsel to lead the investigations. Attorneys general from both party administrations have appointed special counsels to oversee sensitive investigations in recent years.
Smith also charged Trump with four counts of attempting to subvert the peaceful transfer of power following the presidential election in 2020. Cannon wrote in her ruling that the dismissal of the case only applies to the classified documents case and does not affect cases outside her jurisdiction.
Cannon’s dismissal of the Appointments Clause violation comes after the Supreme Court ruled two weeks ago that President Trump is entitled to immunity from federal prosecution for official conduct while in office, a ruling that stemmed from election-related litigation in 2020. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a single concurring opinion questioning the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment.
Trump and his lawyers had highlighted Thomas’ non-binding opinion in their recent filings with Cannon, arguing it bolsters their efforts to dismiss the indictment, which is based on Smith’s illegal appointment.
The former president was indicted in South Florida last year and the trial has moved slowly. It was scheduled to begin in late May, but Judge Cannon postponed it indefinitely.
