This won’t go the way Trump is hoping
2024 must be Donald Trump’s lucky year. First, a sniper positioned relatively closely to him as he spoke managed to only graze his right ear. Now, his favorite judge, Aileen Cannon, has let him off the hook for his mishandling of classified documents. In what is no surprise, Smith has already announced his plan to appeal the decision. Smith’s public information officer, Peter Carr, told Faux News: “The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel. The Justice Department has authorized the Special Counsel to appeal the court’s order.” This dismissal may be a good thing.
According to the Washington Post, court after court has rejected the argument that the appointment of Jack Smith was illegal. In addition to dismissing the case against Trump, it was automatically dismissed against his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira. Even after barely dodging being shot, Trump came out on social media about the dismissal, continuing to accuse Democrats of conspiring against him to bring the cases. Still capitalizing on President Biden’s words, Trump wrote: “Let us come together to END all Weaponization of our Justice System.”
This ruling is a huge boon for Trump. This is the case that gave his attorneys the most concern because of all the potential witnesses who would have been called, including those in his inner circle who know full well that he took those documents without permission and then tried to hide them. God only knows what he planned to do with them or has already done with them. He had top secret documents that were privy to only a few, yet Cannon apparently saw nothing wrong with that as she continues her quest to protect Trump. As WaPo pointed out, Cannon spent most of her 93-page ruling wading through special counsel regulations and doesn’t even address the crimes of which Trump, Nauta, and de Oliveria were accused- “committed” is the right word. They had tapes of them moving boxes and attempts to destroy surveillance footage, and instead of addressing those issues, Cannon let them go on something little more than a technicality-a technicality that she created.
Salon reported that a “slew of legal experts” believes the dismissal will backfire on Trump by being removed from that court entirely to another court where he will not win this argument. Cannon claimed the appointment was unconstitutional. No, what’s unconstitutional and unconscionable is a judge sitting on the bench in a district court who doesn’t even know the law. Bradley P. Moss, a national security lawyer, had this to say: “Judge Cannon dismissed decades of institutional precedent, years of recent rulings on Mueller and Smith, and pretty much the entire premise of the special counsel regulations. Her ultimate complaint? Jack Smith is TOO independent.” Either way, this might work out well. Cannon’s unethical ruling will be overturned, and Smith will get a judge who knows what he or she is doing.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years