Special counsel Jack Smith is arguing to revive his office’s classified documents case against former President Donald Trump in the first formal filing since the criminal case was dismissed last month by Judge Aileen Cannon.
In a brief filed with the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Monday, Smith argued that Cannon’s decision to end the Trump case because the prosecutors’ office lacked constitutional authority was “novel” and “lack[ed] merit.”
Cannon had ruled the Justice Department didn’t have the ability to appoint or fund special counsels like Smith.
Smith’s team also cast the decision from Cannon as not just affecting other special counsel prosecutions – of which there are several ongoing in other courts, against Trump and Hunter Biden, among others – but also as potentially affecting the power of leaders across the federal government, as reported by CNN.
“If the Attorney General lacks the power to appoint inferior officers, that conclusion would invalidate the appointment of every member of the Department who exercises significant authority and occupies a continuing office, other than the few that are specifically identified by statute,” Smith’s office wrote in the 81-page filing.
“The district court’s rationale would likewise raise questions about hundreds of appointments throughout the Executive Branch, including in the Departments of Defence, State, Treasury, and Labor,” the prosecutors added.
Trump was charged last summer with several counts of mishandling sensitive government documents taken from his White House at the end of the presidency. The Republican presidential nominee also faces several obstruction charges for alleged efforts to hinder the federal probe into the materials.
The former president and his two co-defendants – Trump employees also accused of obstruction – have pleaded not guilty.
The 11th Circuit is reviewing the determinations by Cannon that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional and that his office was being unlawfully funded, as reported by CNN.
Notably, though other courts have upheld the use of special counsels, Cannon said that Congress had not given the Justice Department the authority to make such an appointment, while also concluding that the funding for Smith’s office had not been properly appropriated by lawmakers.
