Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
Justice not served in classified-documents case
Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal allows Trump to avoid a trial.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
July 16, 2024 at 7:46PM
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On Monday afternoon, former President Donald Trump received his party’s nomination.
It was the second major victory of the day for the Republican standard-bearer. Because earlier that morning, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon — a Trump appointee — capped a pattern of questionable defendant-friendly decisions by dismissing the classified documents case the former president faced in Florida.
Of his four indictments, this one appeared to have the most overwhelming evidence, including testimony of former Trump aides and attorneys. The case cries out for adjudication, especially since it involves classified materials that Trump allegedly kept at his residence, as well as his alleged attempt to obstruct the FBI’s effort to retrieve them. Since the initial charges, photos of troves of materials stored haphazardly in Mar-a-Lago ballrooms, bathrooms and other areas have suggested a grave mishandling of some of the country’s most sensitive national security secrets.
But Cannon, neglecting decades of precedence, ruled in effect that the appointment and funding of special counsel Jack Smith by Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the appointments clause of the Constitution because it was not specifically appointed by the president or authorized by Congress.
Never mind that both Republican and Democratic administrations — including Trump’s — had appointed special counsels in a similar fashion, including in scandals like Watergate. And that other courts have previously rejected similar legal arguments, including a challenge to Trump’s Justice Department appointing Robert Mueller in his investigation into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.
One outlier from this legal consensus was Clarence Thomas — the Supreme Court justice who because of his wife’s advocacy of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election should have recused himself from the recent ruling on presidential immunity. Instead, he sided with the majority and even wrote a concurrence, which no other justice signed on to, espousing the same reasoning evident in Cannon’s 93-page ruling. In fact, Cannon referred to the concurrence several times in her order.
“This ruling is not about whether Trump committed crimes,” Alan Rozenshtein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota, told an editorial writer. “This ruling is about who can prosecute Trump for crimes he allegedly committed. And there’s a very long history of using special counsels.”
The attorney general, Rozenshtein said, “cannot let this ruling stand, so he has to appeal.”
And indeed, the Department of Justice has indicated it will do just that. But that process takes time, and coupled with the way Cannon slow-walked the case, time may run out on holding Trump accountable if he wins the November election and orders his attorney general to drop the case.
Cannon’s ruling “is deeply unfortunate,” Mark Osler, a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas, told an editorial writer. “I think it undermines people’s respect for criminal law. I don’t think it reflects corruption as such, because I don’t think that there’s a quid pro quo going on here. But I do think that there is going to be a public perception that is exacerbating the Supreme Court’s [immunity] ruling and other things that is going to lead to the conclusion that the president is above the law.”
Osler’s right. Which makes a statement from Trump lawyer Chris Kise even more galling. Cannon, Kise said, “restored the rule of law and made the right call for America. Jack Smith is not above the law and must be held accountable under the Constitution.”
On a day when Trump was nominated for president and had a strong case against him dismissed by a judge who under different circumstances conservatives would decry as “activist,” Osler said that “one thing that’s in the background is how much elections matter. We’ve seen simultaneously the impact of Donald Trump’s appointments at the top of the federal system with the Supreme Court and at the bottom with this district court judge who is making decisions that people are going to reflect as being out of loyalty to the person who appointed her, rightly or wrongly.”
Just one more reason to pay attention to, and participate in, this consequential presidential election.
Now that Gov. Tim Walz’s vice presidential bid has ended, there’s important work to do at home. Reinvigorating that “One Minnesota” campaign is a must.
