(RightWing.org) – Former President Donald Trump has faced numerous attempts by the Left to punish him since he left office, including an impeachment proceeding solely meant to make him ineligible for the 2024 election. He’s also up against a conviction (at least for now) in the ultra-Blue New York City on trumped-up charges [pun very much intended] and a case claiming he allegedly tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Another challenge is a special counsel witch hunt regarding documents found at his Florida home.
On top of all that, federal authorities have named Thomas Matthew Crooks as the individual who came within inches of assassinating him at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania who was then “neutralized” by a United States Secret Service counter-sniper marksman.
Thankfully, one of these challenges is now going away — at least for now.
Tossed Out
Judge Aileen Cannon was overseeing Special Counsel (SC) Jack Smith’s document case in the United States Court for the Southern District of Florida and has now ruled in favor of a motion to dismiss filed by Trump’s legal team. They argued that the way the prosecutor was appointed violated the United States Constitution.
The first argument made by the defendants was that United States Attorney General (AG) Merrick Garland overstepped his authority by appointing Smith to the role because that power is constitutionally given to the US Senate after receiving notification from POTUS (the Appointments Clause).
Their second point was the administration’s decision to give the SC “a permanent indefinite appropriation” of cash to fund his politically motivated witch hunt violated the separation of powers because Congress controls the purse strings of the country (the Appropriations Clause).
In her published opinion, Judge Cannon said that Garland’s decision to appoint Smith to his position “effectively usurps that important” division that the Founding Fathers put between the Legislative and Executive branches of the government. As of late, it seems that the nation is on the verge of a shutdown every other day because the Democrats and Republicans argue about how much money should be given to each branch of the government, and the judge once again decided in favor of the defendants saying that Congress had not allocated the funds for the special counsel office; however, she decided that there was no need to determine what remedy was necessary there since the appointment issue was sufficient on its own to warrant the dismissal.
Cannon’s analysis of the issues at hand sheds some light on the outrageous amount of money already spent by Smith in his investigation and prosecution of Trump saying that as of September 2023, it had already totaled $23,904,269. Although the now-official Republican candidate in the 2024 election has sought to have all court cases against him dropped because of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decision on presidential immunity, this ruling does not consider that aspect.
AG Merrick has decided that his office will appeal Cannon’s decision, regardless of any decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the losing party there will undoubtedly appeal to the SCOTUS where Justice Clarence Thomas may have already foreshadowed his thinking. In his concurring opinion in the immunity case, he wrote that he was skeptical of the attorney general’s constitutional authority “to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States.”
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