Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the so-called “classified documents” case against former President Donald Trump. You can read Judge Cannon’s well-reasoned order through this link.
Of the many phony Democrat lawfare cases against former President Trump the “classified document” case ranks right up there with the “hush money” case as being, as our friend Rick Manning at Americans for Limited Government put it, both shaky and shady.
Interestingly, Judge Cannon dismissed the case on the grounds that Special Counsel Jack Smith was illegitimately appointed – something that many legal scholars had argued from the very beginning of the lawfare campaign to imprison the former President.
Our friend Hans von Spakovsky, a former Department of Justice lawyer, and Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation said of Judge Cannon’s order in the case, “Judge Cannon must be praised for upholding the rule of law and the Constitution in a very difficult case and in the face of unfair, politically charged criticism of her handling of it. Special recognition must also be given to former Attorney General Edwin Meese III who first raised the unconstitutionality and unlawfulness of Jack Smith’s appointment in an amicus brief filed in federal court in Washington in Smith’s other questionable indictment of Donald Trump.
“It was an act of arrogance for Garland to believe he could appoint a special prosecutor with extraordinary powers, bypassing the constitutional requirement that such a prosecutor be nominated by a president and confirmed by the Senate. As Judge Cannon rightly said, the attorney general has no authority ‘to appoint a federal officer with the kind of prosecutorial power wielded by’ Smith.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton likewise applauded Judge Cannon’s principled decision to end this constitutionally rogue criminal proceeding that has so abused President Trump and the rule of law.
“I am an eyewitness to these abuses, as I was harassed personally by Jack Smith’s rogue operation, said Mr. Fitton in a statement shared with CHQ. “Today’s decision is a victory for the U.S. Constitution and accountable government. This case never should have seen the light of day. Judicial Watch has long called out the unconstitutional ‘special counsels’ and their attendant abuses of Trump and other innocent political targets.”
As Judge Cannon notes in her opinion:
The Appointments Clause is a critical constitutional restriction stemming from the separation of powers, and it gives to Congress a considered role in determining the propriety of vesting appointment power for inferior officers. The Special Counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a Head of Department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers. If the political branches wish to grant the Attorney General power to appoint Special Counsel Smith to investigate and prosecute this action with the full powers of a United States Attorney, there is a valid means by which to do so. He can be appointed and confirmed through the default method prescribed in the Appointments Clause, as Congress has directed for United States Attorneys throughout American history … or Congress can authorize his appointment through enactment of positive statutory law consistent with the Appointments Clause.
Democrats and media pundits have bemoaned the fact that Judge Cannon even chose to hear arguments on the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment. They even organized mass campaigns to file ethics complaints against her, reported Breitbart’s Joel B. Pollack.
They have accused Cannon of being biased in Trump’s favor because he appointed her. But more neutral observers have applauded her attention to detail and her refusal to rubber-stamp Smith’s prosecution and its unusual (to say the least) methods.
Judge Cannon has been a stickler for procedure and critic of Smith’s manipulation of the courts. After Smith brought charges against Trump in Florida — the site of Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago — alleging that he had mishandled classified documents when he left office she looked askance at the fact that Smith convened a grand jury in Washington, D.C. — a notoriously anti-Trump jurisdiction — rather than in Florida.
As Breitbart News noted in early June, Cannon scheduled a hearing on the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment, which had been raised by the defense as well as a number of outside amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs.
Smith’s arrogance has been a feature, not a bug, of his conduct during his leadership of the lawfare campaign against President Trump. Last month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in a concurring opinion in Fischer v. United States — which said the Department of Justice had abused its power in prosecuting January 6th defendants under a statute about witness tampering — that Smith’s appointment was likely unconstitutional. Smith later took aim at Thomas’s arguments in an unrelated filing in the case last week, which raised some legal eyebrows.
It is not clear if Cannon’s ruling affects Smith’s separate prosecution of Trump for January 6-related charges in Washington.
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Jack Smith
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