A federal judge in Florida threw out the prosecution of former President Donald Trump on Monday in the “documents” case because she ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith had not been appointed in a constitutional or lawful manner.
Judge Aileen Cannon granted a defense motion after ruling that Smith, who was not confirmed by the U.S. Senate and was not a U.S. Attorney when appointed, could not lawfully bring the indictment against Trump in federal court.
“In the end, it seems the Executive’s growing comfort in appointing ‘regulatory’ special counsels in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny,” Cannon wrote, according to a CNN report.
Update: In her opinion, Judge Cannon wrote:
In the end, it seems the Executive’s growing comfort in appointing “regulatory” special counsels in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny. Perhaps this can be traced back to reliance on stray dictum in Nixon that perpetuated in subsequent cases. Perhaps it can be justified practically by the urgency of national crises. Or perhaps it can be explained by the relative infrequency of these types of investigations, by congressional inattention, or by the important roles that special-counsel-like figures have played in our country’s history. Regardless of the explanation, the present Motion requires careful analysis of the statutory landscape to ensure compliance with the Constitution, and the Court has endeavored to do so with care.
