Former Republican President Donald Trump won another legal victory on Monday with the dismissal of all federal charges against him for withholding classified documents after he left the White House.
The Republican presidential candidate in November, who is to be formally sworn in at the party’s convention beginning Monday, was being sued along with two of his personal assistants over his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, home.
Donald Trump hailed it on his Truth Social network as “a first step”, calling for the cancellation of the three other criminal proceedings against him.
Judge Aileen Cannon granted a request by his lawyers to quash the proceedings, ruling that the appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith, who is investigating the case, was unlawful.
Without ruling on the merits of the case, she claims that the appointment and funding of the special prosecutor violate the sections of the Constitution relating to appointments and expenses.
It relies in particular on the position expressed by conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the unprecedented decision of the country’s highest court on March 1er July, recognizing the President of the United States with broad criminal immunity.
Justice Thomas had, in a separate concurring opinion, challenged the legality of Smith’s appointment in another case, the federal prosecution of Donald Trump for attempting to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Appeal, or even request for relinquishment
“The Court is convinced that Special Counsel Smith’s prosecution of this case violates two pillars of our constitutional order: the role of Congress in appointing officials under the Constitution and the role of Congress in authorizing legal spending,” the judge wrote.
The prosecution can nevertheless appeal this decision, or even request the removal of the judge, appointed by Donald Trump, as many legal experts suggest.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served under Democratic President Barack Obama, denounced the decision on X as “totally absurd. We must appeal and remove this incompetent judge.”
The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, on the other hand, welcomed in a statement “good news for America and for the rule of law”. Calling for national unity after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump on Saturday, he asked for “an end to the witch hunts that have unjustly targeted President Trump”.
Partial criminal immunity
Donald Trump was accused of compromising national security by keeping the documents, including military plans and information on nuclear weapons, at home after his presidency ended, instead of handing them over to the National Archives as required by law.
Another law, on espionage, prohibits keeping state secrets in unauthorized and unsecured locations. He is also accused of trying to destroy evidence in the case. The most serious charges carried a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Judge Cannon had already postponed indefinitely this trial, which was to begin on May 20.
Historic Conviction in New York
Targeted by four criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is doing everything he can to be tried as late as possible, in any case after the election against the Democratic president, Joe Biden.
Found guilty on May 30 by the New York courts of “aggravated false accounting to conceal a conspiracy to pervert the 2016 election,” Trump is due to be sentenced in September.
This first criminal conviction, unprecedented for a former American president, will in all probability be the only one before the vote, especially after the Supreme Court’s decision of 1er July.
In this unprecedented decision, the Court, hearing an appeal against the federal procedure, also brought by Jack Smith, for an attempt to illegally reverse the results of the 2020 election, considered that, from a criminal perspective, “the president is entitled to at least a presumption of immunity for his official acts.”
She therefore sent the case back to the trial court to determine which acts are potentially immune from criminal prosecution, with the prosecution having to demonstrate that they are not when they were carried out by a president in the exercise of his functions.
If re-elected, Donald Trump could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order a halt to federal prosecutions against him.