August 26th 2024.
The legal battle between special counsel Jack Smith and former President Donald Trump has reached a new phase. Smith has filed a brief with the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, arguing against Judge Aileen Cannon's decision to dismiss the criminal case against Trump due to the lack of constitutional authority of the prosecutors' office. According to Smith, this decision is "novel" and lacks substance.
Cannon's ruling not only affects the Trump case, but also has the potential to impact the power of leaders across the federal government. Smith's team argues that if the Attorney General does not have the power to appoint inferior officers, it would invalidate the appointments of many other officials in the Executive Branch. This could have far-reaching consequences for the Department of Defense, State, Treasury, and Labor, among others.
The charges against Trump, which include mishandling sensitive government documents and obstruction of the federal probe into those materials, were brought last summer. However, the former president and his two co-defendants have pleaded not guilty. The 11th Circuit is now reviewing the determinations made by Cannon regarding Smith's appointment as special counsel and the funding of his office.
Cannon's ruling in July leaned on a concurrence written by Justice Clarence Thomas, in which he questioned the constitutionality of Smith's appointment. This was in the context of the separate election interference case that Smith brought against Trump in DC. The Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled that Trump has presidential immunity, but Thomas also raised concerns about the appointment of special counsels.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung believes that not only should the dismissal of the charges in Florida be affirmed, but all charges in other states should also be dismissed. The attorneys for the other two defendants in the classified documents case have not yet commented on the matter.
The appeals court that will decide whether the case can be reinstated has a conservative lean, but in a previous dispute with Trump in 2022, they criticized Cannon's handling of the federal documents investigation. The court reversed multiple rulings by Cannon that had limited the probe into the classified documents and stated that no one should be able to block government investigations after a search warrant has been executed.
It is unclear which judges from the 11th Circuit will be on the panel that will review Cannon's dismissal of the charges. Even if they make a decision relatively quickly, it could take months or even years to fully resolve the issues in this case. It's possible that it could even reach the Supreme Court, as other courts have decided the legal questions differently than Cannon.
In their brief, the Department of Justice has indicated that they are prepared to defend the case before the Supreme Court if necessary. They cite historical examples, such as the Watergate investigation of President Richard Nixon, to support the use of independent prosecutors. They also mention how attorneys general have used outside prosecutors in the past for cases such as the treason proceeding of Jefferson Davis and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
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