WASHINGTON — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump in Florida dismissed the prosecution on Monday, siding with defense lawyers who said the special counsel who filed the charges was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, which can be appealed and may be overruled by a higher court, brings at least for now a stunning and abrupt conclusion to a criminal case that at the time it was filed was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the legal threats the Republican former president confronted.
Though the case had long been stalled, and the prospect of a trial before the November election already was an unrealistic scenario, the judge’s order is a mammoth legal victory for Trump as he recovers from a weekend assassination attempt and prepares to accept the Republican nomination in Milwaukee this week.
In one of four criminal cases against Trump, he had faced dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back. He had pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
Defense lawyers filed multiple challenges to the case, including a legally technical one that asserted that special counsel Jack Smith had been illegally appointed under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause because he was appointed by…
