The US Attorney’s Office on Wednesday appealed the dismissal of a criminal case in which former President Donald Trump is accused of having stored classified documents in his home, writes the Reuters news agency.
On Monday, Aileen Cannon, a judge in the state of Florida, dismissed the criminal case. According to the judge, the special prosecutor in the case, Jack Smith, was appointed illegally. Thus, he does not have the right to bring the case to court either.
Immediately after the judge’s decision, the prosecution announced that the decision would be appealed. That was formally done Wednesday, when Smith’s office requested to revive the criminal case, overturning Cannon’s denial of it.
“The rejection of the case deviates from previous conclusions from all previous courts that have assessed the issue of the Minister of Justice being authorized to appoint a special prosecutor”, writes Smith in a statement according to dpa.
Jack Smith has also been appointed as special prosecutor in another case in which Trump is accused in a federal court in Washington DC of trying to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
In other cases, other judges have ruled that the US Department of Justice has the ability to appoint special prosecutors. This applies especially in cases that can be described as politically sensitive. But with Aileen Cannon’s decision, renewed doubt has arisen as to whether the case about the storage of classified documents will go to court, writes Reuters.
After Donald Trump stepped down as President of the United States on January 20, 2021, the FBI found classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence in Florida. Charges have been brought against him for, among other things, obstructing the FBI’s work and lying to the authorities. The charges also count violations of the Espionage Act.
Trump has had four criminal cases hanging over his head for months. He and his lawyers have continuously tried to have them postponed until after the November 5 presidential election.
On May 30, he was found guilty of all 34 charges in the tys-tys case, which is about falsifying financial records to cover up an affair with a porn star.
ritzau
Source: politiken.dk
