In a stunning move, former President Donald Trump’s confidential documents case was tossed out by a federal judge in Florida on Monday — eliminating one of his biggest legal liabilities just 113 days before the Nov. 5 election.
Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case against the Republican presidential candidate, which was widely viewed as the most serious of four criminal cases he faces, on the grounds that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith to the prosecution violated the Constitution.
“I am thrilled that a judge had the courage and wisdom to do this. This has big, big implications not just for this case but for other cases,” Trump told Fox News in an interview moments after the ruling.
“The special counsel worked with everybody to try to take me down. This is a big, big deal. It only makes the convention more positive — this will be an amazing week.”
Trump, 78, faced up to 450 years in prison if convicted on all counts in the case.
The ex-president was accused of hoarding troves of confidential documents at his Mar-a-Lago home after he left office and then attempting to cover it up.
Cannon ruled that Congress was required to appoint “constitutional officers” and the legislature was also needed to approve spending for such a prosecution.
“That role cannot be usurped by the executive branch or diffused elsewhere — whether in this case or in another case, whether in times of heightened national need or not,” Cannon wrote.
The judge wrote that “Special Counsel Smith’s investigation has unlawfully drawn funds from the Indefinite Appropriation.”
“The Special Counsel’s office has spent tens of millions of dollars since November 2022, all drawn unconstitutionally from the Indefinite Appropriation,” Cannon wrote.
“For more than 18 months, Special Counsel Smith’s investigation and prosecution has been financed by substantial funds drawn from the Treasury without statutory authorization, and to try to rewrite history at this point seems near impossible. The Court has difficulty seeing how a remedy short of dismissal would cure this substantial separation-of-powers violation, but the answers are not entirely self-evident, and the caselaw is not well developed.”
The Trump-appointed federal judge cited Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ July 1 dissent in a ruling on presidential immunity, which suggested the special counsel appointment could be unconstitutional, in her decision.
Cannon seemed to indicate that the Department of Justice was free to appeal her ruling when she said she was leaving her decision up “for any applicable future review.”
Trump and his valet Walt Nauta were indicted in the classified records case in June 2023 following a dramatic FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022.
Smith also is the prosecutor in the second federal case against Trump for challenging the results of the 2020 election, meaning that Cannon’s ruling is likely to reverberate in the courts as Trump’s lawyers could seek to have the DC case tossed while pointing to Cannon’s decision.
That case is being overseen by federal Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, whom Trump has derided as biased against him.
Trump also faces state election charges in Georgia on election-related counts, though it is unclear when or if that case will go to trial due to defense challenges to the role of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat who previously hired her romantic partner Nathan Wade as lead prosecutor.
The ex-president was convicted in the final case against him on May 30 on 34 New York state charges for falsifying business records to conceal 2016 “hush money” payments. Trump has not yet been sentenced in that case and is vowing to appeal.
In a remarkable coincidence just hours before Cannon’s ruling, Trump told The Post’s Michael Goodwin that “we hear” that President Biden and the Justice Department — rather than the judge — would be dropping the case and additional federal charges related to the 2020 election after the failed assassination attempt against him on Saturday.
Politicians on both sides of the aisles sounded off about the surprise decision with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blasting it as “misguided” and House Speaker Mike Johnson lauding it as the “right result.”
“This breathtakingly misguided ruling flies in the face of long-accepted practice and repetitive judicial precedence. It is wrong on the law and must be appealed immediately,” Schumer said. “This is further evidence that Judge Cannon cannot handle this case impartially and must be reassigned.”
Neither the Department of Justice nor lawyers for Trump immediately returned requests for comment Monday.
