A man wearing a Donald Trump mask outside the Alto Lee Adams Sr. U.S. Courthouse in Florida on February 12.
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Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A man wearing a Donald Trump mask outside the Alto Lee Adams Sr. U.S. Courthouse in Florida on February 12.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
On Monday, Donald Trump became the official Republican presidential nominee at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin.
Just hours after the gavel sounded, we also learned who his running mate would be: Ohio Senator JD Vance.
And Trump himself is receiving warm support from attendees and speakers in Milwaukee as he recovers from a heart attack. assassination at an election rally on Saturday.
While a branch of the Justice Department continues to investigate the shooter’s motives, a federal judge made another shocking announcement Monday morning: Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the entire federal lawsuit against the former president related to his handling of classified documents.
The documents in question include top-secret documents that the former president withheld after his term in office. He is also accused of hiding those documents from federal investigators.
Cannon’s ruling gives Trump a major legal victory on the first day of the RNC.
Consider this Host Ailsa Chang spoke with NPR Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson about the legal issues in the ruling and its implications.
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Delegates are seen on stage during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
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Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
An unexpected end to the secret documents case
Judge Cannon said the special counsel in the case, Jack Smith, was unconstitutionally appointed and lacked the authority to carry out the prosecution. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith in 2022, but Judge Cannon said only Congress or the president has that authority. She also said the way the special counsel is funded is inappropriate.
Judge Cannon’s opinion cites a recent opinion by conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in another case against Trump, in which Justice Thomas essentially invited Trump and the lower courts to address the issue of special counsel power—which paved the way for today’s opinion.
Jesse Panuccio is a former Justice Department official in the Trump administration. He said Cannon wrote a serious and correct opinion questioning the special counsel’s authority:
“Mr. Smith is a private citizen who has not been vetted by the United States Senate, who has not been appointed by the president, exercising the full powers of a United States attorney, which are very broad — the power to prosecute and imprison people, in this case a former president.”
Johnson said the practical impact of the judge’s ruling was to dismiss the entire case, not just against Trump but also his co-defendants — his aides at the Mar-a-Lago resort.
But the Justice Department has the right to appeal, and Johnson said there is good reason to think it will. Judge Cannon was overturned by a conservative appeals court. was in this case.
Several other federal courts that have considered the issue — under the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution — have sided with the Justice Department.
Trump welcomed the move and called for the dismissal of three other criminal cases against him. He falsely claimed that all of the charges were coordinated political attacks and election interference by his opponent, President Joe Biden. But two of the cases were handled by state authorities — and the other two were overseen by the Justice Department, which said Biden had nothing to do with them.
A staffer displays pro-Trump signs on the floor during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention.
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Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Trump’s legal position
Johnson said if other courts follow Judge Cannon’s reasoning, it would mean both federal lawsuits against Trump—the one in Florida and the one in Washington on January 6—are over. But it also has implications for how the Justice Department has investigated sensitive allegations against political figures since the Nixon era. Attorney Matthew Seligman said what’s at stake is any prosecution brought by the special counsel:
“The Department of Justice is an organization that has a huge interest in protecting the constitutionality and legality of special counsels in general. Not just because of the January 6 case, but because there have been dozens of special counsels and special prosecutors over the decades.”
The Trump case over classified documents is considered the strongest of the four cases against the former president. The bulk of the Florida case concerns Trump’s conduct after he left the White House, allegedly bringing classified documents to his Florida resort, storing them in bathrooms and ballrooms accessible to any guest, and then refusing to hand them over when the Justice Department asked — even after the FBI searched the property.
Prosecutors previously said it was as close to a clean slate as the DOJ could get. Now, Johnson says there will be more delays at best:
“And if Trump wins back the White House, he could instruct his attorney general to drop all appeals and bury this case forever.”
This episode was produced by Brianna Scott and Kai McNamee. Edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
