Judge dismisses Donald Trump’s secret documents case

A federal judge has dismissed a secret documents case against Donald Trump, ruling that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued the ruling today. Trump has been accused of concealing documents and obstructing justice since leaving the White House.

“After carefully reviewing the fundamental challenges raised in the motion, the Court is convinced that Special Counsel Smith’s prosecution of this case violates two structural pillars of our constitutional system — Congress’s role in appointing constitutional officers and Congress’ role in authorizing expenditures under the law,” Cannon wrote.

“The framers of the Constitution gave Congress a key role in appointing principal and subordinate officials. That role cannot be usurped by the executive branch or dispersed elsewhere—whether here or there, whether in times of heightened national need or not. In the case of subordinate officials, that means that Congress has the authority to decide whether to grant appointive authority to a department head, and indeed Congress has shown itself able to do so in many other statutory contexts. But it clearly did not do so here, despite the Special Counsel’s strained interpretations of the statute.”

Cannon was appointed to the position by Trump.

Her ruling is the latest bombshell in Trump’s legal proceedings. He faced four separate sets of indictments in state and federal court last year. But Smith, appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland, brought what has become the most definitive case against the former president involving secret documents. His indictment accused Trump of mishandling the documents — including photos of boxes of papers on a stage and in a bathroom at Mar-A-Lago — and withholding them when federal authorities demanded their return.

The ruling came just hours before the start of the Republican National Convention, where Trump, after surviving an assassination attempt last weekend, is scheduled to appear tonight.

Read the decision denying Judge Aileen Cannon’s motion.

More to come.