The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has addressed Jack Smith’s appeal of Judge Cannon’s decision to dismiss the classified documents case against President Trump.
According to Politico, the appeals court has set a schedule requiring Trump and Jack Smith to submit briefs through October.
Jack Smith’s chances of reviving the case won’t happen before the election, as the legal briefs need to be filed and oral arguments heard by the court.
As reported by Politico:
Special counsel Jack Smith’s bid to revive the classified documents case against Donald Trump appears unlikely to be resolved or even argued in court before Election Day.
Smith is appealing U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision last week to dismiss the case, in which the former president is charged with hoarding national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.
The federal court that will hear his appeal — the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals — laid out a schedule Thursday that requires Smith and Trump to file legal briefs through mid-October.
After all the briefs are in, the court will likely hear oral arguments, with a decision weeks or potentially months after that.
On Wednesday, Special Counsel Jack Smith appealed Judge Cannon’s decision to dismiss the classified documents case to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Monday, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Jack Smith’s classified documents case, citing the unlawful appointment and funding of the special counsel.
The charges waged against Trump and his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira were all tossed.
In June 2023, Jack Smith indicted Trump on 37 federal counts in Miami for storing presidential records at his Mar-a-Lago estate, which was protected by Secret Service agents.
Trump was charged with 31 counts under the Espionage Act for the willful retention of national defense information, along with 6 additional process crimes related to his conversations with his lawyer.
Judge Cannon dismissed the case: “The clerk is directed to close this case,” Cannon wrote.
Judge Cannon dismissed Jack Smith’s case, citing unconstitutional elements: the appointment by U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland and the unlimited funding provided to Jack Smith, both of which occurred without Congressional approval.
“Upon careful study of the foundational challenges raised in the Motion, the Court is convinced that Special Counsel’s Smith’s prosecution of this action breaches two structural cornerstones of our constitutional scheme—the role of Congress in the appointment of constitutional officers, and the role of Congress in authorizing expenditures by law,” Cannon wrote in her order.
“Both the Appointments and Appropriations challenges as framed in the Motion raise the following threshold question: is there a statute in the United States Code that authorizes the appointment of Special Counsel Smith to conduct this prosecution?” Judge Cannon wrote. “After careful study of this seminal issue, the answer is no.”
“The bottom line is this: The Appointments Clause is a critical constitutional restriction stemming from the separation of powers, and it gives to Congress a considered role in determining the propriety of vesting appointment power for inferior officers,” the judge wrote in a 93-page filing.
“The Special Counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a Head of Department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers,” Cannon wrote.
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