The legal argument that Judge Cannon used to dismissed Trump classified documents case

let's bring in ABC News Chief legal analyst Dan Abrams for more Dan other courts had largely rejected this argument that Smith's appointment was unconstitutional so what do you make of Canon's legal reasoning here and how much did this hinge on comments from Justice Clarence Thomas in the Supreme Court's recent decision on presidential immunity well look let's be clear this is definitely an outline uh this opinion but let's also recognize that this is a 993 page uh very detailed opinion that was not just written over the weekend so this is obviously something she has been working on for weeks and I think that's important um whether it was Clarence Thomas or whether she had something in mind even before uh Clarence Thomas had written uh his uh his opinion unclear but when you look at the history right when you look at the challenges that had been made over time um this certainly does not fall in within the mainstream and we'll just have to see what happens in the appell court where I'm certain that Jack Smith and his team will appeal this decision as they have uh another important decision that judge aen Cannon made in the past on this case where she was overed so Dan what recourse does the special Council have now well that's what they're going to do right it's going to be an appeal uh and they're going to go to the 11th circuit which is the court of appeals that oversees uh her District to say that as a legal matter this is the wrong decision now remember if this was like a jury verdict prosecutors can't appeal prosecutors can't say the jury got it wrong but when a judge makes a legal ruling like this before the trial even starts particularly something where they're saying the case should be dismissed well then prosecutors can appeal it as I expect that they will now of course remember that this doesn't fundamentally change what would happen before the election uh this case was never uh going to be tried before the election based on the various delays that judge Cannon uh had been imposing throughout this case I never thought there was a chance that this would happen before the election so as a practical matter it doesn't change the before the election the question becomes if Donald Trump loses uh then the cases would presumably move forward and so then that ruling would become very important as to what happens next let's follow that through what kind of precedent could this set could this decision affect the January 6th case or even other special councils like the one overseeing the hunter Biden case right so so she doesn't have the power as a district court judge to set precedent per se but there is no doubt that if you use some of the reasoning in this opinion you could apply it uh to the hunter Biden case you could apply it to any of the cases where there's a special counsel John Durham Etc now the the judge would say wait a sec there's a difference here between the John Durham case and and David Weiss who's the prosecuting Hunter Biden because they Were Us attorneys who'd already been confirmed by the Senate and part of the issue here is the power uh that the Attorney General should have to appoint someone who hasn't been a US attorney confirmed by the Senate the problem with that is if you actually read the reasoning in her ruling it goes much further than that and as a result if she did have precedent right if this was an appet Court opinion and it applied to the hunter Biden case you could absolutely use the reasoning that she uses to say that the US that the Attorney General shouldn't have the power to appoint this kind of almost you know all powerful special counsel who has so much independent Authority all right our chief legal analyst Dan Abrams Dan thank you thank you

Channel: ABC News

Views: 13,898

Keywords: Donald, Trump, abc, case, classified, dismissed, documents, jack, judge, news, notes, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-111958310, sealed, smith

Id: 4j7_WFxOKqU

Length: 4min 25sec (265 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 15 2024