Judge in Trump trial over withholding classified documents dismisses proceedings

Photo: Charly Triballeau Agence France-Presse Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump leaving Trump Tower in New York on May 31, 2024

Gerard Martinez – Agence France-Presse respectively in Miami and Washington

Published at 10:20 Updated at 20:08

• United States

Former Republican President Donald Trump won a new legal victory on Monday with the cancellation of the entire federal proceeding against him for withholding classified documents after his departure from the White House.

The Republican presidential candidate in November, who is to be officially inaugurated at the party's convention beginning Monday, was being sued along with two of his personal assistants for his handling of classified documents at his private residence Mar-a-Lago, in Florida.

Donald Trump welcomed on his Truth Social network “a first step”, calling for the cancellation of the three other criminal proceedings against him.

Judge Aileen Cannon granted a request from her lawyers and quashed the proceedings, considering the appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith, who is investigating the case, to be illegal.

Without commenting on the merits of the case, she asserts that the appointment and financing of the special prosecutor violate the sections of the Constitution relating to appointments and expenditures.

It relies in particular on the position expressed by conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the unprecedented decision of the highest court in the country on July 1 granting the President of the United States broad criminal immunity.

Justice Thomas had, in a separate concurring opinion, challenged the legality of the appointment of Jack Smith in another case, the federal proceedings against Donald Trump for attempts to illegally reverse the results of the 2020 election.

Appeal, even request for relinquishment

“The Court is convinced that the prosecution of Special Counsel Smith in this case violates two pillars of our constitutional order, the role of Congress in appointing officials under the Constitution and the role of Congress in legally authorizing expenditures,” writes the judge.

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The prosecution can nevertheless appeal this decision, or even request the dismissal of the judge, appointed by Donald Trump, as many legal experts suggest.

The former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served under Democratic President Barack Obama, called X a “totally absurd” decision. We must appeal and dismiss this incompetent judge.”

The Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, on the other hand, welcomed in a press release a “good news for America and for the rule of law.” Calling for national unity after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Saturday, he calls for “an end to the witch hunts that have unfairly targeted President Trump.”

Partial criminal immunity

Donald Trump was accused of having compromised national security by keeping these documents, including military plans or information on nuclear weapons, at home after the end of his presidency, instead of handing them over to the National Archives as required. requires the law.

Another law, on espionage, prohibits keeping state secrets in unauthorized and unsecured locations. He is also accused of trying to destroy evidence in this case. The heaviest charges were punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Judge Cannon had already postponed this trial indefinitely, which was scheduled to begin on May 20.

Historic conviction in New York

Targeted by four criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is doing everything possible to go to trial as late as possible, in any case after the vote against Democratic President Joe Biden.

Convicted on May 30 by a New York court of “aggravated accounting falsification to conceal a plot to pervert the 2016 election,” Trump is due to receive his sentence in September.

< p>This first criminal conviction, unprecedented for a former American president, will in all probability be the only one before the vote, especially after the Supreme Court's decision of July 1.

In this unprecedented decision, the Court, seized of an appeal against the federal procedure, also instructed by Jack Smith, for attempting to illegally reverse the results of the 2020 election, considered that, on the criminal level, “the President is entitled to at least a presumption of immunity for his official acts.”

So she sent the case back to the trial court to determine which acts are potentially immune of criminal prosecution, with the burden on the prosecution to demonstrate that they are not when they were carried out by a president in the exercise of his functions.

If he were elected again, Donald Trump could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order an end to federal proceedings against him.