Miami, Jul 15 (EFE).- Florida Judge Ailenn Cannon on Monday dismissed the case in which former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump (2017-2021) was accused of taking confidential documents from the White House.
The ruling, which comes two days following an attempted assassination of Trump while he was holding a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, represents a legal victory for the former president.
This is the first time that one of the four criminal cases once morest Trump, who formally received his party’s nomination today at the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, has been dismissed entirely.
Cannon, who was nominated during Trump’s presidency, argued that the special counsel in charge of the investigation, Jack Smith, was not legally appointed and therefore “violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
The federal judge noted in a 93-page document that Smith’s appointment did not follow the usual procedures, which include confirmation by the Senate.
He added that Congress has a fundamental role in the appointment of special officials and that “that role cannot be usurped by the Executive Branch or disseminated elsewhere, whether in this case or another, whether in times of greater national need or not.”
For its part, the special prosecutor’s office led by Jack Smith expressed today in a statement its intention to appeal Judge Cannon’s ruling.
“The dismissal of the case departs from the uniform conclusion of all prior courts considering the issue of whether the Attorney General is authorized by law to appoint a special prosecutor,” said Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office.
The US Justice Department “has authorized the special counsel to appeal the court’s order,” Carr added of the case in which Trump was accused of illegally retaining classified documents following leaving office and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to recover them.
The question of whether Smith’s appointment was legal or not had already been raised by the former president’s lawyers during the hearings, and the special prosecutor’s team argued that addressing this claim should not warrant dismissing the case entirely.
The decision comes on the first day of the Republican convention, where Trump chose Ohio Senator JD Vance, a 39-year-old businessman and writer, as his vice presidential candidate.
On his social network, Truth, the former president celebrated the decision of the federal judge and pointed out that all criminal and civil cases once morest him (which he described as a “witch hunt”) should be dismissed in favor of the “Unification” of the nation.
Trump still faces other trials in Washington, Atlanta and New York.
Three of Trump’s five children – Tiffany, Eric and Donald Jr – attended the delegate vote on Monday that made official their father’s candidacy for the US presidency, on the first day of the Republican National Convention.
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2024-07-16 17:15:45
