After the stunning dismissal of the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice is vowing to pursue an appeal.
“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,” said Peter Carr, a spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith‘s office. “The Justice Department has authorized the Special Counsel to appeal the court’s order.”
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Monday morning that no statute authorized the appointment of Smith and his deputies, who were appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, and her decision cited violations of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and the Appropriations Clause.
“The bottom line is this: The Appointments Clause is a critical constitutional restriction stemming from the separation of powers, and it gives to Congress a considered role in determining the propriety of vesting appointment power for inferior officers,” Cannon wrote in a 93-page ruling.
Trump’s second challenge was rooted in the Appropriations Clause, which prohibits “any money from being ‘drawn from the Treasury’ unless such funding has been appropriated by an act of Congress,” Cannon added.
Although Smith’s office has not yet filed its appeal, that effort will head up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which has a mixed-body of Democratic- and Republican-appointed judges and has previously overturned Cannon in the case, such as over her decision to appoint a special master to scrutinize documents investigators seized from Mar-a-Lago.
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Following Trump’s motion claiming Smith was illegally appointed, Cannon agreed with the defense counsel that she was not bound by every aspect of the unanimous 1974 Supreme Court opinion U.S.A. v. Nixon, which forced President Richard Nixon to turn in tape recordings to a federal court and other subpoenaed material to the Watergate scandal.
Cannon’s move came weeks after she allowed outside groups of legal experts, both for and against Trump’s argument, to present arguments over Smith’s appointment.
