Trump Indicted!

[Sommerswerd]

Trump was originally supposed to be sentenced today

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yesterday.

 

[Zardnaar]

He was an executive producer of the film

Armorer was gross negligence though.

 

[Farm Boy]

Res ipsa loquiter.

 

[Sommerswerd]

News is announcing that the Florida classified documents case has been dismissed.

EDIT:

Federal judge dismisses Trump classified documents case over concerns with prosecutor's appointment​

WASHINGTON -- The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case of former President Donald Trump in Florida dismissed the prosecution on Monday, siding with defense lawyers who said the special counsel who filed the charges was illegally appointed.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon brings a stunning and abrupt conclusion to a criminal case that at the time it was filed was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the legal threats that the Republican former president confronted. Trump faced dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back.

Defense lawyers filed multiple challenges to the case, including a legally technical one that asserted that special counsel Jack Smith had been illegally appointed under the Constitution's Appointments Clause, which governs the appointment of certain government positions, and that his office was improperly funded by the Justice Department.

Cannon, whose handling of the case had drawn scrutiny since before the charges were even filed, agreed, writing in a 93-page order: “The Framers gave Congress a pivotal role in the appointment of principal and inferior officers. That role cannot be usurped by the Executive Branch or diffused elsewhere — whether in this case or in another case, whether in times of heightened national need or not.”

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory...-classified-documents-case-concerns-111952270

 

[Kaitzilla]

News is announcing that the Florida classified documents case has been dismissed.

EDIT:

Federal judge dismisses Trump classified documents case over concerns with prosecutor's appointment​

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory...-classified-documents-case-concerns-111952270

Oh my lord.
I feel faint.

This was the one open-and-shut felony case against him without any doubts of guilt.

They even had him on tape admitting he didn't declassify any of it!

Can the feds redo it with a new prosecutor some day?

**Edit**
Ya, I think the New York one will be reversed on appeal.

But they got him dead to rights on this case.

Trump’s legal team has long considered the classified document case to be the strongest of the four criminal cases against him — in part because the acts in question mostly occurred after he left the White House — and the one they were most worried about.

 

[Sommerswerd]

It has been pretty clear since the outset that it would come to this with Judge Cannon.

EDIT: Here is the AP article it seems most news sites are cribbing from (note that the AP article immediately mentions for instance, that the decision can be appealed, while the ABC article omits this) -

Federal judge dismisses Trump classified documents case over concerns with prosecutor’s appointment​

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump in Florida dismissed the prosecution on Monday, siding with defense lawyers who said the special counsel who filed the charges was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, which can be appealed and may be overruled by a higher court, brings at least for now a stunning and abrupt conclusion to a criminal case that at the time it was filed was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the legal threats the Republican former president confronted.

Though the case had long been stalled, and the prospect of a trial before the November election already was an unrealistic scenario, the judge’s order is a mammoth legal victory for Trump as he recovers from a weekend assassination attempt and prepares to accept the Republican nomination in Milwaukee this week.

Defense lawyers filed multiple challenges to the case, including a legally technical one that asserted that special counsel Jack Smith had been illegally appointed under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause because he was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, rather than being confirmed by Congress, and that his office was improperly funded by the Justice Department.

“The Special Counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a Head of Department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers,” Cannon wrote in a 93-page order granting a defense request to dismiss the case.

“If the political branches wish to grant the Attorney General power to appoint Special Counsel Smith to investigate and prosecute this action with the full powers of a United States Attorney, there is a valid means by which to do so,” she added.

That mechanism is through congressional approval, she said.

The order is the latest example of Cannon, a Trump appointee, handling the case in ways that have benefited the ex-president.

She generated intense scrutiny during the FBI’s investigation when she appointed an independent arbiter to inspect the classified documents recovered during the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, a decision that was overturned months later by a unanimous federal appeals panel.

Since then, she has been slow to issue rulings — favoring Trump’s strategy of securing delays — and has entertained defense arguments that experts said other judges would have dismissed without hearings. In May, she indefinitely canceled the trial date amid a series of unresolved legal issues.

Smith’s team had vigorously contested the Appointments Clause argument during hearings before Cannon last month and told the judge that even if she ruled in the defense team’s favor, the proper correction would not be to dismiss the case. Smith’s team had also noted that the position had been rejected in other courts involving other prosecutions brought by other Justice Department special counsels.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-classified-documents-smith-c66d5ffb7ba86c1b991f95e89bdeba0c

 

[EgonSpengler]

Oh my lord.
I feel faint.

This was the one open-and-shut felony case against him without any doubts of guilt.

They even had him on tape admitting he didn't declassify any of it!

Can the feds redo it with a new prosecutor some day?

They can appeal the decision, but that ruling won't happen before the election, so this is pretty much just a victory for Trump.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

So can anyone explain to me just what happened? I do not get it. Well, I get that Trump was freed from being prosecuted for this one thing. But like that's all I get.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

But this isn't political, right? No, only the left weaponises the justice system.

This is fine.

 

[Sommerswerd]

They can appeal the decision, but that ruling won't happen before the election, so this is pretty much just a victory for Trump.

The ruling on the appeal could happen before the election. The real problem, is that this will make it impossible to have the trial before the election, which is what Judge Cannon's obvious goal was.

Even more importantly, Jack Smith would probably, at long last move to have Judge Cannon removed, if and when this latest ruling gets overturned. Judge Cannon's removal is obviously not going to happen before the election. She always intended to dismiss the case, but her concern was that if she tried to do so, Jack Smith would appeal, get her ruling overturned, then move to have her taken off the case. This way, she dragged it out long enough so that her dismissal couldn't be undone before the election.

Additionally, even if they wanted to have the Senate confirm Jack Smith (or some other Special prosecutor), that would also not be able to get done before the election.

So yes, the bottom line is the Florida case isn't happening before the election, and isn't happening at all if Trump wins the election.

@Birdjaguar is it too early for me to return all those dipping sauces and spice rubs?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

But this isn't political, right? No, only the left weaponises the justice system.

This is fine.

No, what would make you think that? Everyone politicizes everything. Where ever there is power there will be people who abuse it for personal gain. And politics is the fast track to that.

And you know what the worst part is? It's usually not even directed from the top or even remotely coordinated. Most politically motivated abuses of power happen in what you might call middle management positions. By that I mean people like judges or newspaper editors or local town councilmen or middle management in state run companies etc. Basically people who have just enough power to do something and just enough ambition to think making a grand gesture of political allegiance will get them ahead in life. Even though their idea of what constitutes "grand" is not even really a blip on the radar of actually important things. Like say a local boss forcing his 5 employees to vote for the "correct" political party.

The people who do this typically join what ever party is in charge at the moment or what ever party they are betting on being in charge next term. And the ones on top of said parties usually do not even know or care that it's happening until it either blows up spectacularly or succeeds enough to get their attention. Which is how you get the absurd situation that abuses will continue regardless of who is nominally in control at the top. And often times even against those at the top because some middle manager corrupt guy wanted to bet on the other side. Because the guys actually doing it are the same either way. Just corrupt people using politics as a cover to be corrupt and get ahead in life.

But what does that have to do with my question?

 

[Birdjaguar]

An appeal could get her tossed from the case. We can only hope.

Live Updates: Judge Dismisses Classified Documents Case Against Trump​

Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the entire case should be thrown out because the appointment of the special counsel who brought the case, Jack Smith, had violated the Constitution. Her decision is sure to be appealed.

A major legal threat against Trump is dismissed. Here’s the latest.​

A federal judge dismissed in its entirety the classified documents case against former President Donald J. Trump on Monday, ruling that the appointment of the special counsel, Jack Smith, had violated the Constitution.
In a stunning ruling, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, found that because Mr. Smith had not been named to the post of special counsel by the president or confirmed by the Senate, his appointment was in violation of the appointments clause of the Constitution.
The ruling by Judge Cannon, who was put on the bench by Mr. Trump, flew in the face of previous court decisions reaching back to the Watergate era. And in a single swoop, it removed a major legal threat against Mr. Trump on the first day of the Republican National Convention, where he is set to formally become the party’s nominee for president.
Here’s what else to know:

• Appeal expected: Mr. Smith’s team will almost certainly appeal the ruling by Judge Cannon throwing out the classified documents indictment, which charges Mr. Trump with illegally holding onto a trove of highly sensitive state secrets after he left office and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.
• Possible election effects: Judge Cannon’s previous delays in this case had already all but ensured there could be no trial until after the 2024 election. If Mr. Trump wins, he could use his power over the Justice Department to have it scuttle the case if it still exists.
• Undoing precedent: The ruling rolls back nearly 30 years of how special counsels have gotten their jobs. Special counsels are governed by Justice Department regulations set through the statutory authority of the attorney general. That has been the case since the Clinton administration, when the previous law on independent prosecutors was allowed to lapse in the wake of the Whitewater investigations.
• Praised by Trump: Mr. Trump celebrated the dismissal of the case in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. He argued that all the cases against him, criminal and civil, should be dismissed “as we move forward in Uniting our Nation” after the assassination attempt against him on Saturday in Pennsylvania.
• Unusual decisions: Judge Cannon has made a host of highly unusual decisions in the classified documents case almost from the moment that she took control of it in June 2023. She has granted a serious audience to some of Mr. Trump’s most far-fetched defense claims and has repeatedly scheduled hearings for issues that many, if not most, federal judges would have dealt with on the merits of written filings. Even so, it’s fair to say that almost no one expected her to kill the documents case in quite this way at quite this moment.

July 15, 2024, 12:03 p.m. ET11 minutes ago
11 minutes ago
Glenn Thrush

Cannon based her dismissal of the Florida case on the fact that Jack Smith was not appointed by the Senate or the president. By contrast, the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden, David Weiss, is also the U.S. attorney for Delaware — a Senate-confirmed post. That could make any challenge to the Weiss appointment more difficult, John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney from Virginia, told me.

17 minutes ago
Glenn Thrush
Attorney General Merrick Garland — faced with investigations into Trump, President Biden and Hunter Biden — has used the special counsel regulation as much as any of his predecessors to provide political cover and insulate the department. It seems likely, though not guaranteed, he will appeal Cannon’s decision. But as of yet the department has declined to comment.

Live Updates: Judge Dismisses Classified Documents Case Against Trump

Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the entire case should be thrown out because the appointment of the special counsel who brought the case, Jack Smith, had violated the Constitution. Her decision is sure to be appealed.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Birdjaguar]

So can anyone explain to me just what happened? I do not get it. Well, I get that Trump was freed from being prosecuted for this one thing. But like that's all I get.

CS Cannon has declared that the appointing special prosecutors requires Senate approval, undoing 30 years of DOJ practices. With that ruling she says Jack Smith's indictment is unconstitutional./unlawful and therefore dismissed the case.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

CS Cannon has declared that the appointing special prosecutors requires Senate approval, undoing 30 years of DOJ practices. With that ruling she says Jack Smith's indictment is unconstitutional./unlawful and therefore dismissed the case.

Yes, but what is a special prosecutor? How is it different from a regular one? What is the legal basis for this judgement? Etc. Etc. It's like, every time I try and read about all this it's word salad. Either that or this ruling just flat out does not make any sense and I can't get it because of that.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes, but what is a special prosecutor? How is it different from a regular one? What is the legal basis for this judgement? Etc. Etc. It's like, every time I try and read about all this it's word salad. Either that or this ruling just flat out does not make any sense and I can't get it because of that.

Aileen "CS" Cannon is claiming special prosecutors are akin to the other government officials that require Senate approval. Here is her ruling. I have not read it yet.

Read the Ruling That Dismisses the Documents Case Against Trump

Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the classified documents case against former president Donald J. Trump should be thrown out because the appointment of the special counsel violated the Constitution.

www.nytimes.com

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

Yes, but what is a special prosecutor? How is it different from a regular one? What is the legal basis for this judgement? Etc. Etc. It's like, every time I try and read about all this it's word salad. Either that or this ruling just flat out does not make any sense and I can't get it because of that.

Special prosecutors are used for conflicts of interest, typically in cases where someone would be investigating their (former) superior.

The only legal basis seems to be SCOTUS Justice Thomas's offhand mention of it in Trump v US since the SCOTUS has always upheld special prosecutors over the past 200 years.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

But what does that have to do with my question?

Nothing, just happened to be the next post.

 

[Farm Boy]

Aileen "CS" Cannon is claiming special prosecutors are akin to the other government officials that require Senate approval. Here is her ruling. I have not read it yet.

Read the Ruling That Dismisses the Documents Case Against Trump

Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the classified documents case against former president Donald J. Trump should be thrown out because the appointment of the special counsel violated the Constitution.

www.nytimes.com

It is a major departure I think, from jurisprudence.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

So can anyone explain to me just what happened? I do not get it. Well, I get that Trump was freed from being prosecuted for this one thing. But like that's all I get.

As I understand it, prosecutors of federal office-holders like then-president Trump must be allowable by congressional statute and/or be confirmed by the senate. I.e. the congress must say 'yes, this person may prosecute.' Jack Smith was not, essentially being a private citizen and a "ringer" brought in [to use a sports analogy] by the Justice Department themselves.
Why this means the case gets thrown out, instead of suspended, I don't know...

Appointments Clause - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org