A US federal judge has dismissed a criminal case against former President Donald Trump, accused of illegally retaining classified documents after leaving office. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that special counsel who filed the charges was illegally appointed.
Prosecutors are likely to appeal the ruling. Courts in other cases have repeatedly upheld the ability of the U.S. Justice Department to appoint special counsels to handle certain politically sensitive investigations.
The decision by Aileen Cannon brings a stunning and abrupt conclusion to a criminal case that at the time it was filed was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the legal threats that the Republican former president confronted.
Trump faced dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back.
Defence lawyers filed multiple challenges to the case, including a legally technical one that asserted that special counsel Jack Smith had been illegally appointed under the Constitution's Appointments Clause, which governs the appointment of certain government positions, and that his office was improperly funded by the Justice Department.
Cannon, whose handling of the case had drawn scrutiny since before the charges were even filed, agreed, writing in a 93-page order: “The Framers gave Congress a pivotal role in the appointment of principal and inferior officers. 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.”
(With AP Inputs)
