Former US President Donald Trump appears to have survived another battle ahead of the US presidential election in November barely two days after he survived an assassination attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania.
A Florida judge has given the presumptive Republican candiate respite when he dismissed the Justice Department’s classified documents case against him in a huge victory for the former president and a boost to his quest to unseat current President Joe Biden.
Following a motion from Trump, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case on the ground that the Justice Department’s appointment of Special Prosecutor Jack Smith violated the Appointments Clause of the US Constitution.
Trump had pleaded not guilty to several charges in the case over his handling of classified documents, including willful retention of national defense information.
Dozens of classified files were reportedly found in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, including in a shower and storage room, after Trump left the White House in 2021.
“The Court is convinced that Special Counsel’s Smith’s prosecution of this action breaches two structural cornerstones of our constitutional scheme—the role of Congress in the appointment of constitutional officers, and the role of Congress in authorizing expenditures by law,” Cannon concluded in her 93-page order.
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