A judge on Monday dismissed the federal indictment against former president Donald Trump on charges of mishandling classified documents — his second seismic legal victory in less than a month, after a historic Supreme Court decision on immunity. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s 93-page ruling that special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed is a triumph for Trump, even if it is eventually reversed.
It came less than 48 hours after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., and as Trump was preparing to be formally nominated as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
By dismissing the entire indictment, Cannon’s decision also means that the charges are dropped for Trump’s two co-defendants, Waltine “Walt” Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.
After Cannon’s decision, one person who had been told they could be called as a witness in the documents case described Trump as “the luckiest man on Earth.”
The former president was charged with 40 counts of illegally retaining classified defense information and obstructing government efforts to retrieve the material.
He is now challenging that verdict and the indictment itself based on the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
In 2022, after FBI agents searched Trump’s home and found more than 100 classified documents, Cannon appointed a special master — essentially an extra judge — to scrutinize what documents investigators seized. »
