WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — It was a blockbuster ruling that now faces an appeal. A federal judge out of Fort Pierce, Judge Aileen Cannon, dismissed the classified documents case against Donald Trump on Monday. She sided with defense lawyers who argued the special council that filed the charges was illegally appointed.
Cannon is no stranger to controversy in the Trump case. She has her legal supporters including Stuart Kaplan, a local criminal defense lawyer and former FBI agent.
"Judge Cannon ruled on the law and got it right," Kaplan said.
There are her legal critics too, including former federal prosecutor Mark Schnapp.
"I think people are pretty shocked," Schnapp said. "I would call this the Hail Mary argument— that no one thought would have won and it did."
In August 2022, the FBI moved in on Mar-a-Lago, seizing what it says were a huge batch of classified documents.
In June 2023, Donald Trump became the first ever president or former president to be federally indicted. That indictment included more than three dozen felony counts, for alleged mishandling of sensitive documents and a refusal to turn them over to the federal government.
Trump's defense lawyer argued that the special counsel, Jack Smith, was illegally appointed by the U.S. Attorney General. Judge Cannon agreed with their argument that the Constitution required Congress to approve any such appointment.
"This decision flies in the face of years of legal precedent, and that is not her job to be creating new law," Schnapp said, "I thought she hit a foul ball, she's way out of bounds in my opinion."
Judge Cannon is a former federal prosecutor, and the federal appeals court sharply criticized and overruled her early on in the case when she said an independent arbiter should inspect the classified documents.
As to charges of judicial favoritism being aimed at Cannon—a Trump appointee— Kaplan offers an emphatic rebuttal.
"I do believe this judge called it correctly," Kaplan said. "The constitution has been eroded, I think it is a day we should celebrate that thankfully due process is alive and well."
