Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the Mar-a-Lago documents case against Donald Trump, ruling that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith violated the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling was shocking to many, but our own Andy McCarthy had predicted this would happen just a few weeks ago and outlined the reasons in several pieces.
Last month, Andy wrote:
In the coming weeks, there is a very real possibility that the federal district court in Florida will rule that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Jack Smith as a special counsel (SC) violated the Constitution’s appointments clause (Art. II, §2, cl.2).
He reasoned:
Attorneys who authorize the investigation and prosecution of federal crimes must be officers of the United States because they wield significant government power. Under the clause, there are just two ways of qualifying as an officer of the United States: the appointee must either be (a) nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, or (b) appointed to a position that “shall be established by law” — which is to say, by a congressional statute.
Smith, who has run the Trump investigations since his SC appointment by Garland on November 18, 2022, was not appointed under either of those procedures. To the contrary, he was purportedly appointed under the Justice Department’s SC regulations.
For those looking for a deeper explanation of the reasoning that led to today’s ruling, I encourage you to read the whole thing, as well as a follow-up piece with more historical context, going back to Watergate.