US prosecutors on Wednesday formally appealed a federal judge’s decision just two days ago to throw out the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of illegally stashing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence and elsewhere after leaving the White House in 2021.
The office of special counsel Jack Smith filed a notice in court in Florida indicating it would ask the 11th US circuit court of appeals, based in Atlanta, to revive the case and reverse the 15 July ruling by the Florida-based US district judge Aileen Cannon, who unexpectedly decided that Smith had been unlawfully appointed in the first place by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.
Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by the former president in 2020 during his one-term presidency, ruled that Smith’s 2022 appointment by the Department of Justice violated the US constitution.
She argued the violation was because the US Congress did not authorize Garland to name a special counsel with the degree of power and independence wielded by Smith.
The decision shocked many legal experts and was the latest in a series of legal victories for Trump, in his series of cases and following his conviction in a New York criminal case earlier this year. The US supreme court ruled on 1 July that Trump has broad immunity from prosecution for official actions taken as president.
The supreme court’s ruling has had a domino effect on the other charges Trump faces, with a delay to sentencing in the New York hush-money trial in which he was convicted of 34 felonies. Trump has also used the ruling to try to block evidence and delay hearings on the election subversion charges brought by Smith.
Trump still falsely claims he won the 2020 presidential election, not Joe Biden, claims and related actions that have landed Trump in court in Washington DC and Georgia on election interference charges.
Cannon’s decision broke with decades of rulings by other federal courts that have upheld the authority of the attorney general to empower a special counsel to handle politically sensitive investigations.
The practice has been used for decades by administrations of both political parties. Special counsels have also investigated Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
But her decision aligned with arguments Trump’s lawyers have made and with Clarence Thomas, the US supreme court justice, who wrote in a concurring opinion to the presidential immunity ruling that the special counsel didn’t have the authority to pursue the case. Cannon cited his concurrence in her ruling multiple times. It is part of a pattern where Thomas’s writings signal to the rightwing legal world potential strategies and theories to use in court.
Cannon’s ruling dismissed the charges against Trump and co-defendants Walt Nauta, a personal aide to Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago, where the documents were found during an FBI search.
Trump was accused of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents, including records related to the US nuclear program, and Trump and the two co-defendants also were accused of obstructing the federal investigation, which they all deny.
Six of the 12 active judges on the 11th circuit were appointed by Trump. The 11th circuit has dealt Trump a defeat earlier over the classified documents case. In 2022, before the charges were filed, a three-judge 11th circuit panel reversed a ruling by Cannon to appoint a third-party “special master” to vet evidence FBI agents seized during a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
Reuters contributed reporting
