Special Counsel Jack Smith Appeals Dismissal of Trump Records Case | Donald Trump Trial

U.S. prosecutors formally appealed a federal judge’s decision just two days ago to dismiss the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of illegally hiding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and elsewhere after he left the White House in 2021.

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office filed a notice with a Florida court saying it would ask the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revive the case and overturn a July 15 decision by Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who unexpectedly ruled that Smith was unlawfully appointed in the first place by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Cannon, who was appointed to the post by the former president in 2020 while he was in office, ruled that the Justice Department’s 2022 appointment of Smith violated the U.S. Constitution.

She argued that the violation was because the U.S. Congress had failed to authorize Garland to appoint a special prosecutor with the same degree of power and independence as Smith.

The decision shocked many legal experts and is the latest in a string of legal victories for Trump, in his series of trials and after his conviction in a criminal case in New York earlier this year. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that Trump enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for official acts he performed as president.

The Supreme Court’s decision had a domino effect on other charges against Trump, with a delay in sentencing in the New York corruption trial in which he was convicted of 34 felonies. Trump also used the decision to try to block evidence and delay hearings on Smith’s election subversion charges.

Trump continues to falsely claim that he won the 2020 presidential election, not Joe Biden, allegations and related actions that have landed Trump in courts in Washington DC and Georgia for election interference.

Cannon’s decision breaks with decades of rulings by other federal courts that have upheld the attorney general’s authority to empower a special prosecutor to handle politically sensitive investigations.

The practice has been used for decades by administrations of both political parties. Special prosecutors have also investigated Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

But his decision is in line with arguments made by Trump’s lawyers and by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote in a concurring opinion in the presidential immunity ruling that the special counsel lacked the authority to pursue the case. Cannon repeatedly cited his concurring opinion in his decision. It’s part of a trend in which Thomas’s writings signal to the right-wing legal world potential strategies and theories to use in court.

Cannon’s ruling dismissed charges against Trump and his co-defendants Walt Nauta, a Trump personal assistant, and Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago, where the documents were found in an FBI search.

Trump has been charged with illegally retaining sensitive national security documents, including records related to the U.S. nuclear program, and Trump and his two co-defendants have also been charged with obstructing the federal investigation, which they all deny.

Six of the 12 active judges on the 11th Circuit are Trump appointees. The 11th Circuit had already handed Trump a defeat in the classified documents case. In 2022, before the charges were filed, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit overturned a decision by Cannon to appoint a third-party “special master” to review evidence seized by FBI agents during a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Reuters contributed to this report