Special Prosecutor Jack Smith formally indicated this Wednesday (17) that he is appealing Monday’s decision (15) to dismiss the confidential documents indictment against former President of the United States, Donald Trump.
The special prosecutor’s team filed the appeal, a procedural mechanism that begins the appeal, this Wednesday.
The notice came just two days after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the indictment.
Cannon’s decision comes well before the 30-day deadline that prosecutors faced to file the appeal.
The prosecutors’ move means Cannon’s shocking decision will be reviewed by judges on the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The two-page document from Smith’s team did not indicate whether prosecutors will try to speed up the appeals process.
Cannon, in his Monday ruling, said he had concluded that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional, justifying dismissal of the case against Trump.
Remember the case
Donald Trump was indicted in June 2023 by a federal grand jury in Miami, accused of obtaining classified national defense documents from the White House after leaving office and resisting government attempts to recover the materials.
Both Trump and his adviser Walt Nauta have pleaded not guilty.
On July 27, 2023, Special Counsel Jack Smith brought three new charges against Trump, including an additional charge of willful withholding of national defense information. Nauta also received two new charges.
A third defendant, Carlos de Oliveira, was added to the case with four charges, including obstruction conspiracy in the original charge.
Main evidence
- Recording of Trump discussing possession of secret documents that he did not declassify.
- About 100 classified documents found in an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
- Surveillance footage turned over to the Department of Justice that allegedly shows Nauta and De Oliveira moving boxes of documents around the resort
The FBI executed a search warrant in August 2022 at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents, that may have been taken there .
The government’s efforts culminated in the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in which federal agents seized thousands of documents, about 100 of which were marked confidential.
Jack Smith was named special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into the documents issue and Trump’s efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election.
The indictment released in June alleges that Trump withheld documents related to national defense that were classified at the highest level, and some were so sensitive that they required special treatment.
The Justice Department selected 31 documents — one for each of the 31 intentional withholding charges Trump faced. Several of the records concern the military capabilities of several countries, prosecutors said.
Understand more about the case through this article.
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