Donald Trump Classified Documents Case Dismissed Days After Attempted Assassination

The Florida judge dismissed Donald Trump's classified documents trial just days after the attempted assassination of the former President.

Last year, special counsel Jack Smith charged the former President with taking classified documents from the White House and resisting government efforts to retrieve them. Trump pleaded not guilty.

The news of Donald Trump's case dismissal also comes on the first day of the Republican National Convention.

District Judge Aileen Cannon, presiding over Donald Trump's classified documents trial, dismissed the case against the former president on Monday, citing the illegal appointment and funding of special counsel Jack Smith.

In her 93-page decision, the U.S. District Judge, a Trump appointee, declared Smith's appointment "unlawful" and unconditional. "The clerk is directed to close this case," she wrote.

In court papers filed in February, Trump's lawyers argued that the appointments clause of the Constitution “does not permit the Attorney General to appoint, without Senate confirmation, a private citizen and like-minded political ally to wield the prosecutorial power of the United States. As such, Jack Smith lacks the authority to prosecute this action.”

“For more than 18 months, Special Counsel Smith’s investigation and prosecution has been financed by substantial funds drawn from the Treasury without statutory authorization, and to try to rewrite history at this point seems near impossible,” she wrote. “The Court has difficulty seeing how a remedy short of dismissal would cure this substantial separation-of-powers violation, but the answers are not entirely self-evident, and the caselaw is not well developed.”

“In the end, it seems the Executive’s growing comfort in appointing ‘regulatory’ special counsels in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny,” Cannon wrote.

In her ruling on Monday, Cannon stated that the Justice Department "could reallocate funds to finance the continued operation of Special Counsel Smith’s office," but added that it remains uncertain whether any new case would hold up legally.

The news of his case dismissal comes two days after the former President was shot in the ear during a rally on Saturday, July 13. Chaos erupted at the event when Donald Trump was rushed off-stage following an assassination attempt.

Several gunshots rang out just moments after Trump took the stage, prompting Secret Service agents to immediately swarm the 78-year-old and take cover behind the podium. Blood was visible on his right ear as he was swiftly escorted to safety.

According to the Secret Service, one spectator was killed, and two others were critically injured after "multiple shots" were fired. The gunman was shot and killed, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.

Earlier this year, the former President was facing charges of falsifying business records related to payments made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels. On Thursday, May 30, 2024, he was found guilty on all 34 counts.

The jury, made up of 7 men and 6 women from New York, reached a historic decision, making Trump the first President in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime. They found that Trump falsified records to conceal unlawful interference in the 2016 presidential election through a $130,000 hush money payment, which elevated the falsification charges to felonies.

"Our whole country is being rigged right now," the 78-year-old told the press outside the courtroom. "This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound, to hurt an opponent. A political opponent. And I think it's just a disgrace, and we'll keep fighting, we'll fight till the end, and we'll win because our country has gone to hell. We don't have the same country anymore, we have a divided mess."

"We are a nation in decline, serious decline of people pouring into our country right now. From prisons and from mental institutions. Terrorists and they're taking over our country," he continued. "We have a country that's in big trouble, but this was a rigged decision right from day one, with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case. Never!"

Trump is also facing a state-level election subversion case in Georgia and was convicted of state crimes in New York earlier this year related to a hush money payment scheme prior to the 2016 election.