US prosecutors have officially appealed a judge’s decision to drop criminal proceedings against Donald Trump, who is accused of illegally retaining secret documents after the end of his presidency.
The office of Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed a notice announcing that it will ask the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reopen the case and overturn U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision that Smith was improperly appointed.
Cannon, who was appointed judge by Trump in 2020, ruled that Smith’s appointment in 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the U.S. Constitution because Congress did not authorize Garland to appoint a special counsel with the same level of power and independence as Smith.
Monday’s decision was the latest in a series of legal victories for Trump.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that Trump enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for his actions as president, a decision that halted another criminal case brought by Smith over Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
Trump is the Republican candidate challenging Democratic President Joe Biden in the US election on November 5 in a repeat of the election four years ago.
A spokesman for Trump’s campaign reiterated the former president’s previous call for all four criminal cases against him to be dropped in light of Cannon’s decision.
Cannon broke with decades of jurisprudence in other federal courts that had upheld the attorney general’s authority to delegate to a special counsel the power to conduct politically sensitive investigations.
This practice has been used for decades by presidential administrations of both parties. Special counsels have also investigated Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Cannon’s ruling dismissed charges against Trump and co-defendants Walt Nauta, a personal adviser to Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where the documents were found during an FBI search.
Trump was accused of illegally storing sensitive national security documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office in January 2021, including records related to the U.S. nuclear program and potential military vulnerabilities.
Trump and the two co-defendants were also accused of obstructing an investigation into the former president’s handling of the material.
Trump and his co-defendants had pleaded not guilty.
In addition to the two indictments brought by Smith, Trump was prosecuted in two other cases.
He became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime when a New York state jury found him guilty in May of paying porn star Stormy Daniels hush money to avert a sex scandal before the 2016 election.
He is due to be sentenced in September. Trump also faces charges in the state of Georgia over his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat.
The two remaining criminal proceedings are not expected to be concluded before the election.