Judge hands Trump major legal victory, dismissing classified documents charges
A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of illegally holding onto classified documents, dealing the former president another major legal victory in what some analysts believed was the most formidable case he was facing among his four criminal indictments.
Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated by Trump, ruled that special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the prosecution, was unlawfully appointed to his role and did not have the authority to bring the case.
It marked another blockbuster legal victory for Trump, following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on July 1 that as a former president he enjoyed immunity from prosecution for many of his actions in office. It comes two days after he survived an assassination attempt, and as he prepares to announce his vice-presidential running mate as the presumptive nominee at the Republican convention this week in Milwaukee.
Trump has been accused of taking thousands of papers containing some of the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets when he left the White House in January 2021 and storing them in a haphazard manner at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Reportedly, another document may have been in Trump’s possession at a New Jersey property he owned.
The 37-count indictment included violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalizes unauthorized possession of defence information, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The charges included references to dozens of top-secret or secret documents.
Prosecutors are likely to appeal Monday’s ruling or potentially refile the charges in D.C., where the original request for documents emanated from. Courts in other cases have repeatedly upheld the ability of the U.S. Justice Department to appoint special counsel to handle certain politically sensitive investigations.
“This ruling flies in the face of about 20 years of institutional precedent, conflicts with rulings issued in both the Mueller investigation and in D.C. with respect to Jack Smith himself,” said Bradley Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security.
But Cannon’s ruling throws the future of the case, which once posed serious legal peril for Trump, into doubt. Smith is also prosecuting Trump in federal court in Washington over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, but the former president’s lawyers have not made a similar challenge to the special counsel in that case.
The classified documents investigation was first referred to prosecutors in 2022 after the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration tried for more than a year to retrieve presidential records from Trump.
Following the judge’s decision on Monday dismissing the documents case, Trump said his other outstanding prosecutions should also be thrown out. He is still awaiting trial on two cases — a federal prosecution in Washington and a Georgia state prosecution — for his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
Trump is also due to be sentenced in New York in September for trying to cover up a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the weeks before his 2016 election victory.
“This dismissal of the Lawless Indictment in Florida should be just the first step, followed quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts,” Trump said on his Truth Social site on Monday, also referencing the prosecutions of hundreds of his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump left for the Republican National Convention a day after an assassination attempt at a campaign rally killed a bystander. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden called for unity as investigators searched for the shooter’s motive.
Congress approval needed, Trump lawyers argued
Trump’s lawyers challenged the legal authority for Attorney General Merrick Garland’s 2022 decision to appoint Smith to lead investigations into Trump. They argued the appointment violated the U.S. Constitution because his office was not created by Congress and he was not confirmed by the Senate.
Lawyers in Smith’s office disputed Trump’s claims, arguing there was a well-settled practice of using special counsel to manage politically sensitive investigations.
The ruling is the latest and most consequential in a series of decisions from Cannon favouring Trump’s defence and expressing skepticism about the conduct of prosecutors. The judge previously delayed a trial indefinitely while considering a flurry of Trump’s legal challenges.
In an unusual move, she allowed three outside lawyers, including two who sided with Trump, to argue during a court hearing focused on Trump’s challenge to Smith’s appointment.
Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas also provided a boost to Trump’s challenge to the special counsel. In an opinion agreeing with the court’s decision to grant Trump broad immunity in the election case, Thomas questioned whether Smith’s appointment was lawful using similar arguments to those made by Trump’s lawyers.
Garland appointed Smith, a public corruption and international war crimes prosecutor, to give investigations into Trump a degree of independence from the Justice Department under President Joe Biden’s administration.
Two others — Trump personal aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira — were also charged with obstructing the investigation.
The search of Trump’s property in the summer of 2022 angered Republicans, and one Trump supporter was shot dead three days later after trying to enter an FBI office in Cincinnati.
The case also inspired searches among other high-profile politicians. Biden and former vice-president Mike Pence each returned documents that were located on properties they owned or managed as a result, with no criminal changes resulting.
Published at Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:15:05 +0000
Trump promises convention speech will now be ‘a lot different’ in wake of shooting
Donald Trump’s Republican Party convenes on Monday hoping to chart his return to the White House after he survived an assassination attempt that prompted him and President Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, to call for national unity and calm.
While the event at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis., will be a festive affair to formally choose the party’s presidential nominee, it occurs at a tense moment in U.S. history on the road to the Nov. 5 election rematch between Biden and Trump.
Trump appeared to be shot in the upper part of his right ear as shots were fired at the stage where he was addressing the crowd at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., early Saturday evening. A Trump supporter was killed and two others were wounded before Secret Service agents shot dead the 20-year-old suspected gunman whose motive has yet to be clarified.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump left for the Republican National Convention a day after an assassination attempt at a campaign rally killed a bystander. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden called for unity as investigators searched for the shooter’s motive.
Thousands of armed law enforcement agents roamed streets that were otherwise largely empty on Sunday as delegates streamed in from around the country.
Audrey Gibson-Cicchino, the RNC’s liaison with the Secret Service, said security plans had not been changed for the convention, despite the assassination attempt on Trump.
“We are confident in the security plans for this event and we are ready to go,” she told reporters on Sunday afternoon.
“This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech (on Thursday) will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” Trump told the Washington Examiner.
Biden, too, in a televised address from the White House on Sunday, said: “The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down.”
Accusations about dangerous rhetoric
House Speaker Mike Johnson, the country’s highest-ranking Republican, told NBC’s Today show on Sunday that all Americans needed to tone down their rhetoric. He accused Biden’s campaign of making hyperbolic attacks on Trump.
“Everyone needs to turn the rhetoric down,” he said.
WATCH l Shooting adds another facet to campaign already unlike others:
The National’s Adrienne Arsenault asks former CNN anchor Brian Stelter and Washington Post White House bureau chief Toluse Olorunnipa to break down how an assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a campaign rally could shake up the election in November.
Trump has frequently turned to violent rhetoric in his campaign speeches, using the word “bloodbath,” labelling his perceived enemies as “fascists” while calling migrants “vermin.” He has accused Biden without evidence of a conspiracy to overthrow the United States by encouraging illegal immigration. Trump and other Republican officials and pundits mocked Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, after he was attacked in his home.
In addition, threats to election workers, state officials and prosecutors and judges have never been seen so consistently as since his 2020 election denialism.
Trump and Biden are locked in a close election rematch, according to most opinion polls including by Reuters/Ipsos. The shooting on Saturday whipsawed discussion around the presidential campaign, which had been focused on whether Biden should drop out following a halting June 27 debate performance that resulted in concerns whether the incumbent, 82 in November, could effectively manage the Oval Office for another four-year term.
Highly anticipated speech
For Trump, the convention represents a test.
Having consolidated party control, Trump could seize on the prime time opportunity to deliver a unifying message or paint a dark portrait of a nation under siege by a corrupt leftist elite, as he has done at times on the trail.
“Trump’s convention speech is going to be his introduction to the general public, to the people who aren’t following politics closely. I think he will have even more eyeballs on him [because of the assassination attempt],” said Nachama Soloveichik, a Republican strategist who worked on Nikki Haley’s unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign.
LISTEN l Zack Beauchamp, author of a new book, on the shooting’s threat to U.S. democracy:
Front Burner25:31Trump assassination attempt: What’s next for U.S democracy?
“I would say the message should be one of de-escalation and also reminding people that America is better than that.”
As with previous conventions, a who’s who of prominent Republicans, including media personalities and members of Congress, are slotted to speak.
They range from relative moderates to apologists for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters and hard-right firebrands who have expressed support for conspiracy theories and are divisive even within the party.
The first three days of the event are organized around broad themes, with Monday focused on economic issues, Tuesday focused on public safety and Wednesday focused on national security.
Republicans are expected to portray America as more prosperous, less crime-ridden and less vulnerable to threats abroad during Trump’s 2017-2021 term than it is under Biden, though the record is decidedly mixed and difficult to compare given that the coronavirus pandemic had an impact on both the Biden and Trump presidencies in different ways.
The former president will announce at the convention this week his choice for a running mate, having cited as frontrunners Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, all of whom will speak at the gathering.
Trump held individual meetings with each of the three men late last week in what was effectively one last job interview, according to two sources who requested anonymity to disclose private conversations.
It’s Trump’s second vice-presidential pick over the course of three presidential bids.
Trump, as an outsider candidate who defeated Republican establishment figures in 2016, chose Indiana’s governor Mike Pence then. That political alliance ended when Pence refused to heed Trump’s pleas to not officially certify Biden’s 2020 win. Pence was threatened with deadly violence by some Trump supporters during the Capitol insurrection of early 2021.
Published at Sun, 14 Jul 2024 01:06:12 +0000
