WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—Is a legal “fix” in to get Donald Trump off the hook for all his crimes, personal and political?
Voters could be forgiven if they suspect the answer is “yes,” after the latest pro-Trump ruling, in this instance by Trump-named U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in West Palm Beach, Fla.
After months of agreeing to Trump-demanded delays, Judge Cannon completely threw out the federal case against former President Trump for stealing secret and classified documents from the White House and transporting them to his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida.
Coming on top of delays in other Trump trials, including sentencing in a New York state trial where misogynist and white nationalist Trump was convicted of 34 state campaign finance and hush-money felonies, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” as Hamlet said.
Judge Cannon’s ruling hands a major victory to Trump. It’s the first of his four criminal cases to be entirely dismissed.
Judge Cannon gave Trump her present just hours before the Republican Convention opened on the afternoon of July 15 in Milwaukee. Her reason: Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, whose office is trying that case, was illegally named and thus couldn’t sue Trump for the massive security violation.
“Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” Judge Cannon wrote, swallowing whole the arguments of Trump’s lawyers. The president, through the Justice Department, must nominate and the Senate must confirm “inferior officers” such as Special Counsels, the judge added.
“Is there a statute in the United States Code that authorizes the appointment of Special Counsel Smith to conduct this prosecution? After careful study of this seminal issue, the answer is ‘no.’
“None of the statutes cited as legal authority for the appointment gives the Attorney General broad inferior-officer appointing power or bestows upon him the right to appoint a federal officer with the kind of prosecutorial power wielded by Special Counsel Smith. Nor do the Special Counsel’s strained statutory arguments, appeals to inconsistent history, or reliance on out-of-circuit authority persuade otherwise.”
Judge Cannon’s ruling gives Trump something else to crow about at the Republican convention, which is really a coronation of Trump.
Cannon put one caveat in her decision, declaring it would not apply to any other cases. But Trump’s attorneys are expected to at least bring it up if, when or ever Special Counsel Smith’s trial of Trump in D.C., for Trump’s role in depriving voters of their constitutional rights via the Trumpite U.S. Capitol insurrection, invasion and coup d’etat three and a half years ago, ever starts.
Trump’s lawyers delayed that case before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan until just before the November balloting begins, at best. And if Trump wins in November, his Justice Department toadies could easily drop the case in Chutkan’s court after next January. Trump has vowed to jail Smith, among others.
There is one other live state case against Trump, in Georgia, for racketeering and conspiracy to steal that swing state’s electoral votes in 2020. But Trump’s lawyers have managed to delay that case, too, indefinitely, by entangling Fulton County (Atlanta) District Attorney Fani Willis and her top investigator in charges regarding an alleged personal affair. Higher courts in Georgia have agreed to the delays.
As of those weren’t gifts enough to Trump, he won a key delay in the case he lost—which also backs his delay-delay-delay strategy.
On July 2, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan postponed sentencing Trump on his conviction on 34 counts in the state’s hush-money case involving payments and illegal campaign contributions under state law during Trump’s first presidential run, eight years ago.
Now Justice Merchan will rule on September 6 on whether he can even sentence Trump, and the next date in that case would be September 18, “if such is still necessary.”
Justice Merchan indicated he would review that conviction in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision—on partisan lines—that a former president is immune forever from criminal prosecution for all official acts. Trump’s lawyers argued to Justice Merchan that much of the hush-money evidence came from official acts while Trump was president after winning that election eight years ago.
In their decision, the High Court majority, including three Trump-named justices, also restricted prosecutors from citing any official acts as evidence in trying to prove a president’s unofficial actions—such as inciting the insurrection–violated the law.
Which will leave Judge Chutkan trying to disentangle Trump’s official acts from his personal acts in inciting and aiding the invasion before the trial in her court can even start. And Trump, whose campaign contributors are paying his legal fees, can appeal whatever she rules on that issue, too.
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