Important Takeaways:
- The Florida judge overseeing Donald Trump’s classified documents trial dismissed the case against the former president Monday on the grounds that the appointment of and funding for special counsel Jack Smith was illegal.
- U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, said in her 93-page decision that Smith’s appointment was “unlawful” and unconditional. “The clerk is directed to close this case,” the judge wrote.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special counsel in November 2022, tasking him with overseeing the federal investigations into Trump’s handling and retention of classified documents after he left office as well as his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
- Trump’s lawyers argued in court papers filed in February 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.”
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Important Takeaways:
- If former President Donald Trump gets reelected, he could derail the federal legal cases against him, according to legal experts who said he’d have several ways to get out of the jam once he’s back in the White House.
- Special counsel Jack Smith has brought two sets of charges against Mr. Trump at the federal level. One case accuses him of keeping secret documents that should have been turned over to the government. The case is pending in the Southern District of Florida with a trial date scheduled for May of 2024, though experts say it likely will be delayed further into the election year.
- Smith’s other case accuses the former president of fueling the 2020 election chaos by intentionally misleading the country about the results, and pushing for Congress and states to overturn President Biden’s win.
- That case is pending in Washington, with a trial date not yet set. Like the Florida one, though, it could also be delayed close to — or beyond — the election.
- “Delay is always to his advantage,” said Elliot Mincberg
- If Mr. Trump wins reelection and gets into office before a verdict is rendered, he could shut down the federal cases.
- Trump could order his new attorney general to disband the special counsel and drop the charges altogether.
- Trump could also choose to pardon himself at any time — even before a trial takes place. That’s known as a preemptive pardon.
- In the state cases, New York has charged Mr. Trump with falsifying business records concerning hush payments to two women and a hotel doorman.
- In Georgia, the Fulton County district attorney this week charged Mr. Trump and 18 other individuals with crimes related to his effort to have Georgia overturn Mr. Biden’s victory in the state in 2020.
- Mincberg said those cases are more challenging for Mr. Trump.
- “He doesn’t have power at the state level even if he becomes president,” Mr. Mincberg said.
- Trump would have to rely on state pardon boards, which typically — in both New York and Georgia — require the convicted person to have served part of their sentence before receiving a pardon.
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Important Takeaways:
- Jack Smith’s Charges Against Trump Include Potential Death Penalty
- 18 U.S.C § 241, “Conspiracy Against Rights,” includes a penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison. But it adds that if death results from the actions covered under this provision, the offender may be executed:
- If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or
- If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—
- They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
- One person — Ashli Babbitt, a rioter shot by a law enforcement officer — died as a result of the Capitol riot on January 6, which Smith said Tuesday was the result of Trump’s claims about the election. But Democrats have blamed Trump for the unrelated deaths of several protesters and Capitol Police officers.
- Democrats — and some of Trump’s Republican opponents — have also tried to blame him for apparent efforts by some of the rioters to kidnap then-Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Smith could try to argue the same.
- The other alleged crimes in the January 6 indictment against Trump include lengthy prison terms as penalties as well:
- 18 U.S.C. § 371 – Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
- 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (k) – Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
- 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (c) – Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
- If Trump is convicted of all four charges, and receives the maximum non-lethal penalty, he could be imprisoned for 55 years, if the sentences are set to run consecutively. That, in addition to the possible 460 years in prison in the “documents” case that Smith is prosecuting in federal court in Miami, brings Trump’s maximum federal prison term to 515 years, over half a millennium.
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