Former President Trump on Monday received one of his biggest wins yet in fighting his criminal charges when a judge tossed his classified documents indictment.
By ruling that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision sets aside Trump’s 40 criminal charges that accuse him of mishandling classified documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them from Mar-a-Lago.
Here are five takeaways from Trump’s major win:
First of Trump’s indictments dismissed
Monday’s ruling is the first time a judge has dismissed one of Trump’s criminal indictments in its entirety.
Previously, Trump had only been able to fend off three of his charges in Georgia, where he is accused of entering a months-long criminal conspiracy to overturn President Biden’s 2020 victory in the state.
Grand juries indicted Trump on 91 criminal charges in total. Since then, Trump has staved off 43 of them, been found guilty on 34 and has 14 others pending.
Reacting to the ruling on Truth Social, Trump called for it to be “followed quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts,” listing out his three other criminal cases and two recent civil trials that led to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
Decision latches onto Thomas’s concurrence
Many legal observers had viewed Trump’s argument — that Attorney General Merrick Garland did not hire Smith in accordance with the Constitution’s Appointments Clause — as a long shot.
Cannon had long indicated she was taking Trump’s defense seriously, including by holding a hearing on the issue and inviting outside parties to also argue it before her.
But the defense gained steam when the Supreme Court earlier this month handed down its decision carving out criminal immunity for former presidents. Justice Clarence Thomas penned a separate, solo opinion expressing sympathy with Trump’s defense. Cannon cited it three times.
“I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been ‘established by Law,’ as the Constitution requires,” Thomas wrote, calling on lower courts to examine the issue.
The argument has also long been advanced by two law professors with leadership roles in the conservative Federalist Society, who similarly took issue with special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment probing Trump and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Jack Smith plans to appeal
Smith, the special counsel, said later Monday that he plans to appeal the decision.
“The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel,” Peter Carr, spokesman for Smith’s office, said in a statement.
“The Justice Department has authorized the Special Counsel to appeal the court’s order,” he continued.
That appeal would first head to a three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though it could ultimately reach the Supreme Court.
In theory, Trump could be also charged again by an authorized prosecutor. Congress could pass legislation providing clear authority for future special counsels, or the Department of Justice (DOJ) could bring a case through a standard U.S. attorney.
“If I’m Jack Smith and the DOJ, I might consider handing the Mar-A-Lago case to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, re-indict, and hope it gets assigned to a more competent judge than Cannon,” Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University who closely follows the case, wrote on the social platform X.
Ruling comes at start of GOP convention
Cannon’s ruling arrives the same day as the start of the Republican National Convention, where Trump was officially nominated as the party’s 2024 presidential candidate.
Throughout his campaign, Trump has portrayed himself as a victim of an unfair justice system politicized against him.
The new decision hands him a sizable victory just before he takes the stage to accept the GOP nomination in Milwaukee on Thursday night.
Alina Habba, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign who also serves as his attorney in other cases, told CNN “it is a big decision.”
“The truth is, if and when we win, we are going to have to be transparent with America,” she said on the network. “We are going to have to make sure that people are appointed special counsel the correct way.”
Cannon’s decision also follows a gunman’s attempt to assassinate Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally over the weekend, and Monday morning’s ruling was extensive, spanning 93 pages in length.
Ruling divides Democrats, GOP
Democrats and Trump critics who have long taken issue with Cannon’s handling of the case on Monday again lambasted her decisionmaking, with some calling for her recusal.
“This breathtakingly misguided ruling flies in the face of long-accepted practice and repetitive judicial precedence. It is wrong on the law and must be appealed immediately,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
“This is further evidence that Judge Cannon cannot handle this case impartially and must be reassigned.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) similarly called for the ruling to be overturned on appeal.
“This unprecedented decision goes far beyond this individual prosecution and undermines the entire system that our country has long relied on to protect the independence of investigations of the Executive Branch and prosecutions of political figures,” Durbin said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Republicans and Trump’s allies celebrated the decision.
“As we work to unify this country following the failed assassination attempt of President Trump, we must also work to end the lawfare and political witch hunts that have unfairly targeted President Trump and destroyed the American people’s faith in our system of justice. This development is a critically important step towards that goal,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement.
“Future Supreme Court Justice Cannon,” Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) posted on X alongside a photo of the judge.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote on X, “This is a good day for the rule of law.”
—Updated at 5:52 p.m. Eastern