The timing, the radicalism and the weakness of the argument: The decision in Florida by Judge Aileen Cannon to dismiss the federal investigation into Donald Trump for withholding and concealing classified documents represents a huge victory for the former president. Her ruling, which is certain to be appealed by the US Justice Department, was released on the morning of Monday, July 15, as the first guests flocked to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This coincidence is all the more striking given that, for months, the judge had been employing every possible detour to delay the proceedings and prevent the trial from taking place before the presidential election in November.
This ruling, obviously prepared before the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump, is not an assessment of the material evidence gathered. Judge Cannon challenges the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith, deeming it unlawful. According to her, the founding fathers of the Constitution "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."
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith in November 2022 to lead the two federal investigations into Trump. The first concerns the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol and the multifaceted coup attempt that preceded it during the presidential transition period between Trump and Joe Biden.
The second is the case of the classified documents hastily removed in entire boxes from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, the former president's Florida residence. According to investigators, these highly sensitive records were kept in unsuitable security conditions then concealed from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) when it sought their return. According to many experts, this case is the most substantiated, the most solid, the most damning for Trump among the four in which he was indicted in 2023.
The appointment of a special prosecutor is a classic remedy for the Justice Department in sensitive cases designed to protect the investigation against suspicions of interference by the attorney general or even by the White House. This prosecutor has a high degree of autonomy. Such a remedy, a decades-old practice, has recently been used twice.
Robert Hur investigated some classified documents that had been taken by Biden, then Barack Obama's vice president after he left the White House. While declining to press charges, Hur took the liberty of making some unkind comments about Biden's failing memory during his interview. The second recent case is that of David Weiss, placed in charge of two investigations targeting the president's own son, Hunter Biden, for illegal purchase of a weapon and tax fraud.
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