Former President Trump scored one of the biggest victories yet in his fight against criminal charges on Monday when a judge dismissed an indictment over classified documents.
U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon ruled that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was unlawful and dismissed 40 criminal charges against Trump for mishandling classified documents and obstructing government efforts to recover them from Mar-a-Lago.
Here are five lessons to take from Trump’s landslide victory.
President Trump’s first indictment dismissed
Monday’s ruling marks the first time a judge has dismissed criminal charges against Trump in their entirety.
So far, Trump has been accused of taking part in a months-long criminal conspiracy to overturn President Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia, but has only managed to avoid three charges in the state.
A grand jury indicted Trump on a total of 91 criminal counts. He has since pleaded not guilty to 43 of those charges, been convicted of 34, and has 14 more charges pending.
Trump responded to the Truth Social ruling by citing his three other criminal cases and two recent civil lawsuits that have led to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, and called for an “immediate drop of this entire witch hunt.”
The decision depends on Thomas’ consent.
Many legal experts said Trump’s argument that Attorney General Merrick Garland failed to comply with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution when hiring Smith was weak.
Cannon has previously signaled he is serious about defending Trump, including holding hearings on the issue and bringing in outside experts to help defend him.
But the defense got a boost when the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the former president should be granted criminal immunity. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate opinion sympathetic to Trump’s defense, which Cannon cited three times.
“I am not sure whether the Office of Special Counsel is ‘established by law,’ as the Constitution requires,” Thomas wrote, urging the lower court to look into the issue.
That argument has been made for years by two law professors who hold leading positions at the conservative Federalist Society, who similarly opposed the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Jack Smith can appeal
Unless Special Counsel Smith appeals Monday’s ruling, President Trump’s classified documents prosecution will effectively fail.
The appeal will first be heard by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, but could ultimately make its way to the Supreme Court.
In theory, any authorized prosecutor could indict Trump again: Congress could pass legislation giving explicit authority to a future special counsel, or the Department of Justice (DOJ) could bring the case through standard U.S. prosecutors.
“If I were Jack Smith and the Justice Department, I might want to hand the Mar-a-Lago case over to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida to reprosecute and get a more competent judge than Cannon to take the case,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University who has followed the case closely. Written on social platform X.
Ruling at the start of the Republican Convention
Judge Cannon’s ruling came on the same day the Republican National Convention began, at which Trump was formally nominated as the party’s 2024 presidential candidate.
Throughout his campaign, Trump has portrayed himself as the victim of an unfair justice system that was politicized against him.
The new decision gives him a major win just before he takes the stage to accept the Republican nomination in Milwaukee on Thursday night.
“This is a big decision,” Alina Habba, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign and Trump’s lawyer in other cases, told CNN.
“The truth is, if we win, we have to be transparent with America,” she told the network. “We have to make sure that people are appointed as special counsel the right way.”
Judge Cannon’s decision also comes in the wake of the weekend attack in which a gunman attempted to assassinate President Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Monday morning’s extensive 93-page decision.
The ruling divides Democrats and Republicans
Democrats and Trump critics who have long challenged Cannon’s handling of the case again slammed her decision-making on Monday, with some calling for her to resign.
“This stunningly erroneous ruling flies in the face of long-accepted practice and repeated judicial precedent. It is contrary to law and must be appealed immediately,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.
“This is further evidence that Judge Cannon cannot handle this case fairly and must be transferred.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) similarly called for the verdict to be overturned on appeal.
“This unprecedented decision goes far beyond individual prosecutions and undermines the entire system our nation has long relied on to protect the independence of executive branch investigations and prosecutions of politicians,” Durbin said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Republicans and allies of President Trump celebrated the decision.
“As we work to unite our country in the wake of the assassination attempt on President Trump, we must also work to end the legal war and political witch hunt that unfairly targeted President Trump and destroyed the American people’s faith in our justice system. Today’s progress is a critical step toward that goal,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said in a statement.
“Future Supreme Court Justice” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a close ally of President Trump Post to X Along with a photo of the judge.
“Today is a good day for the rule of law,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) wrote to X.
