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Judge Dismisses Trump Classified Documents Indictment; Judge Finds Special Counsel Jack Smith is Not Authorized to Conduct the Prosecution; Judge Says DOJ Could Reallocate Funds to Pay Special Counsel, Try to Prosecute Again. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 15, 2024 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta.

We are following breaking news at this hour. This just came in. A few moments ago, the judge in the classified documents case down in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon, she has dismissed the Trump classified documents case because the special counsel prosecution is in violation of the appointments clause of the Constitution.

Of course, the special counsel in the case may appeal this case. So, the saga may not be over yet. But that breaking news just coming into us right now at CNN.

Let me go to CNN's Katelyn Polantz. She joins me now. Katelyn, I know this is a very sudden development with lots of implications. What can you tell us?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, Judge Aileen Cannon is closing the classified documents Case against Donald Trump. This was charged about a year ago in the Southern District of Florida, where prosecutors from the special counsel's office, so an office that was appointed by Merrick Garland for the particular reason to look at this in some sort of protected independent way from the rest of the department.

They brought more than 30 charges against Donald Trump for mishandling classified records after the presidency and for obstructing justice, that investigation trying to keep them when the government wanted them back. Judge Cannon is now saying that prosecutor doesn't have the ability to bring this case in court, and thus it must be dismissed.

What she's doing here, Jim, is very much in line with what Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court said in a concurrence just a few days ago in the presidential immunity case. He wrote about the special counsel's office and Judge Cannon's finding here. The reason that this case can't go before her is she says, this special counsel just doesn't have the power in the way that she reads the Constitution, thus, it's done.

ACOSTA: Yes. Katelyn, I'm reading what the judge says in this ruling. It says both the appointments and appropriations challenges as framed in the motion raised the following threshold question. Is there a statute in the United States code that authorizes the appointment of Special Counsel Smith to conduct this prosecution? After careful study of the seminal issue, the answer is no. And it seems she goes on to say the executive's growing comfort in appointing regulatory special counsels in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny. And so, I mean, she really is slamming the fact that there is a special counsel that's been appointed in all of this, but it makes you wonder, Katelyn, why she didn't raise this a while ago. I mean, how is this coming up now?

POLANTZ: It's coming up now because she's just getting to it now. This is something that Trump's team had brought up to her months ago, and she just held a hearing on it just a few weeks ago in June before her, and she did seem to want to really look into is there enough here for her to allow the special counsel case to move forward under the Constitution, and then we get that Thomas concurrence from the Supreme Court basically outlining that he doesn't believe, at least him, no other justices signed on to it, but at least Thomas didn't believe that the special counsel's office is appropriate.

There have been, though, Jim, several other special counsel office prosecutions that people have tried to test this idea that there isn't the authority to bring in a special counsel to bring a case like this against anyone, let alone it be Donald Trump or not. And those cases have moved forward and gone to trial.

This one, though, it's different. And Judge Aileen Cannon is ruling differently than other judges related to Special Counsel Jack Smith and says no more in Florida.

ACOSTA: Fascinating development and it makes you wonder whether or not the special counsel or the Department of Justice may appeal this. I suppose that could happen as well. Is that right, Katelyn?

POLANTZ: Very much so they because this would be a final moment in this case. It is something the Justice Department may try to appeal, take it up to the circuit above her. But they're going to have a lot of things to do.

[10:05:00]

They already are getting their ducks in a row, again, related to the presidential immunity decision and how that impacts the other federal case against Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., related to January 6th. They have a lot to figure out in the coming days on exactly what's next. It is a very new landscape for these criminal prosecutions of the former president.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. And, of course, calls into doubt whether this case will ever go to trial. Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much.

And CNN's Kristen Holmes is live from Milwaukee for us. Any reaction from your end, Kristen?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they are celebrating. Look, we are expecting a statement any moment now. This is happening in real time, but we, of course, will bring that to you as soon as we get it.

But, Jim, we really cannot stress how big of a big deal this is for the former president and for his team. There were many around Donald Trump who saw this case as the most solid case against him. Remember, there are recordings of Donald Trump saying that he knew he had classified documents and he wasn't supposed to show them to anyone. There was evidence piling up against him. And his team really believed that this was probably the most significant case against him. So, this being dismissed is a huge deal.

Now, one of the things that they are pointing to is the fact that they had already believed that this case was not going to go to trial before the election. Remember, this has been their tactic all along, to delay, delay, delay with the hope that Donald Trump was to be elected in November, and those federal cases against him, both this case and the January 6th case, could be dismissed by the former president once he was back in office. Obviously now, as we noted, they can appeal, but they wouldn't even have to go that far because this case has been dismissed.

Now, they're waiting to see what the next steps are going to be. Obviously, they believe that the special counsel's office is going to appeal this. But this is a huge victory for the former president when it comes to his legal issues, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Kristen, let us know when you get reaction. We appreciate it.

And CNN Legal Analyst Michael Moore, he joins me now on the phone. Michael, let me get your reaction to all of this. I mean, obviously there's been a lot of criticism for months now that Judge Cannon was sort of in over her head in handling this case. Did she simply look for an off-ramp here to dump this case?

MICHAEL MOORE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I'm glad to be with you. I do think she probably looked for a way to get out of it. I think it's a little bit too cute by half to do a dismissal order on the beginning of the Republican National Convention, where Trump will be nominated. In fact, she was nominated by him. And this seems to be just a little bit too cute.

And I will tell you, I have no question the Justice Department's Special Counsel's Office will appeal the case, because this is the kind of dismissal that would have broader implications. We're not talking about dismissal because there was some particular, unique fact in this case versus any other case. This is painting with a little bit broader brush. And so she'll see an appeal of her decision taken to the 11th circuit. And the 11th circuit has been somewhat critical of prior decisions she's made. It's a very conservative circuit here.

And then, ultimately, that decision would move would be appeal whichever way it goes. I'm sure would be appealed to the Supreme Court. And there has already been sort of an invitation, if you will, by Justice Thomas to question the appointments of special counsel in this type of thing. So, this is this is sort of the beginning now of the briefing in the appeal schedule, but quite a significant decision at a unique time, and, again, I'm not reading in ulterior motives, but the timing coinciding with the beginning of the convention is certainly unique, especially for a case, which sat for months without any orders and decisions by this particular district judge.

ACOSTA: It's really extraordinary. And for those viewers who are just tuning in, we just want to recap that the judge in the classified documents case has dismissed that case, saying that the special counsel prosecution is in violation of a portion of the Constitution. That's her reading of it. It's also a reading from Justice Clarence Thomas. But, obviously, Michael, a lot of other legal scholars, lawyers like yourself, feel very differently about this. And we've seen other special counsel investigations happen in other cases. And so what makes this one different? Is it any different?

MOORE: Well, it may not be any different. I mean, I think, you know, there's an argument about whether or not the special counsel here was under any oversight and this type of thing. And I'm sure that as we're getting the opinion and sort of digested it, you know, we'll see some of those arguments. But, you know, if you think about it, there's already another special counsel case that has moved forward out of Washington.

And so clearly there's going to be a conflict in the district court opinions. There appears to have already been at least a circuit decision out of the D.C. Circuit, which affirmed it the case moving forward and then Supreme Court, that's when we got into this whole immunity question. So, when you have conflicts between district courts and conflicts between circuits.

[10:10:02]

And that's what makes cases ripe for appeal certainly to be considered on a broader level at the U.S. Supreme Court, ultimately. And that's where we're going to end up. But the stakes are high because the special counsel's office has been a good tool to look at misconduct or allegations of misconduct, prosecutions that need to be handled in a sort of apolitical manner. And she's now brought all that into question with this order.

So, again, I don't think that this affects the timing of the trial happening before the election because that was not going to happen anyway. We were just not going to see this trial before the election. But what it does is it throws shade, if you will, over other prosecutions by the special counsel's office and certainly makes the case then move forward to the Supreme Court, where they may open it or accept it more openly, especially given their recent ruling on presidential immunity.

ACOSTA: Right, which I guess raises the question, Michael, about the January 6th case, Special Counsel Jack Smith's other case that is before Judge Chutkan here in Washington. Might the Trump attorneys say we want to do the same thing that was done in the classified documents case? MOORE: My guessing is that the letter of the laser printers are already going on the motions and the notices to tell Judge Chutkan that, in fact, there has been a decision that has found this to be unconstitutional and that she should accept this as supplemental authority or at least certainly a persuasive supplemental authority, as she looks at a motion to dismiss based on the same grounds in Washington.

And that sort of gives you an idea of the impact and what can happen. So, we go from a little courthouse down in South Florida. And now this is like shooting a missile to the courthouse in Washington, D.C., on that case. And so we'll certainly see.

But there's no question the cases is going to be appealed. And that also that Judge Chutkan will be dealing with motions to dismiss based on what we saw the judge do down -- Judge Cannon do down in Florida.

ACOSTA: And, Michael, how much of this is connected or at least somewhat related to the Supreme Court's decision on immunity as it pertains to for president Donald Trump's actions while as president and actions that a president can take while in office? How much of this is connected to that? I mean, I have to imagine that they're going to be critics of this decision who are going to say, how are you supposed to hold a president accountable for actions that are taken, that may be deemed criminal with all of these different decisions?

MOORE: Well, as far as her reasoning again, we're still looking at that. It's just it's a brand new order that came out. But there's no question that that will be tied into the immunity argument. And you're right, you know, she may have painted with too broad a brush. And, frankly, a lot of times that's when you see cases get reversed when you see judges paint with too broad a brush that can sort of disrupt the normal flow of the process.

So, here, if, in fact, she's saying that there's no such thing as special counsel because it violates the Constitution and the Supreme Court is saying, but wait a minute, we've always said there's limited immunity, how would you ever get to non-presidential, you know, acts if you don't have somebody able to investigate it? That may be what ultimately sends the case back to her with a pretty sharp appellate opinion, suggesting that she is wrong about the special counsel's office.

And, you know, again, that's the unique thing about an opinion like this. It is not based upon some missing piece of evidence and not to tie it to the shooting case, the Rust case we saw out there with Alec Baldwin, but that dealt with whether or not there was a specific piece of evidence turned over to the defense. We're not talking about that here. We're talking about a dismissal, because she found that the entire process was tainted by unconstitutional conduct with the appointment of special counsel.

And that type of overbreadth in a decision can ultimately result in the dismissal -- or, I'm sorry, in a reversal of an opinion where I think you're going to find Supreme Court might say, wait a minute, we've already said you can look at conduct. I mean, we didn't say he had complete immunity. There's got to be some way to do it. You just took away the tool to do that. And so that's the kind of thing that appeals courts will look at it.

So, yes, this may have been an overbroad reaction by district court judge who has not many people more powerful in the country than a district court judge. I mean, they could stop acts of Congress. They could just by the signing of an order, even though they sit in a rather remote place around the country. But they may say you overstepped here and we're going to send it back.

[10:15:00]

ACOSTA: All right. Michael, thanks very much for being ready to go on this very important development.

I want to go out to our Manu Raju in Milwaukee for some political reaction to all of this. Manu, I mean, this is obviously going to send shockwaves through the convention halls in Milwaukee when people look down at their phones and see that this very important case has been tossed out by the judge. Manu, what are you hearing?

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no question about it. There's a lot of cheers among the Trump supporters here and I'm here sitting with my colleague, Mark Preston, as we try to assess the significance of this moment.

I mean, look, we came into this election cycle with Trump facing four criminal charges. We had the Trump election subversion case on the federal level. We have the Atlanta case, the Fulton County case, another election subversion case. The New York hush money case, of course, that led to the conviction on 34 felony counts. But here, the Mar-a-Lago case was also seen as such a significant case of obstruction, mishandling these issues, and now it's gone at this key political moment.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, it's almost as if Donald luck has this lucky rabbit's foot. And it's called a Donald luck. Did I say Donald luck? I mean, I did. I mean it is Donald luck, right? I mean, if you look at all of his wins, everything that has happened, even the assassination attempt on Saturday, like he has been able to like gain strength from this. And I do think that, again, this is another huge loss for Democrats right now because, you know, they're looking for Donald Trump to be taken out, whether it's through the judicial system or whether it's through the ballot box. They don't want to see him back in office yet.

RAJU: Yes, okay. And so like he's got a boost from this, the Mar-a- Lago case, he's going to get a boost from the fact that the Supreme Court, he named three Supreme Court justices, a conservative Supreme Court, they ruled that he has essentially immunity, and that essentially pushes aside the federal case, and then all the shenanigans involving the Fulton County prosecutor in Atlanta, that is essentially pushed that case until after the election. This is going in. People thought, okay, he's got all these criminal charges. This is going to derail any general election candidate. Now, he's going to go essentially with a clean slate. Yes, he was convicted in the New York case, but the political impact of that has not been as seen as significant as these other cases.

PRESTON: And the Supreme Court case, and at least the Trump lawyers believe this, they believe that it does affect the New York case. And it's going to force the New York case to remove a bunch of evidence that they used in that case. So, as you said, everything is being delayed.

Look, Donald Trump is here in Milwaukee right now. He's going to come into this hall behind us, perhaps as early as tonight. I mean, it could be in a -- people say with historic moment. I will say it will be a rather raucous moment in here.

RAJU: Yes, no kidding. And so the -- if you look at this, all the criminal cases, do you view this one that was just dismissed, this Mar-a-Lago case, as the most politically damaging or just as bad as the other two federal election subversion cases? How would you rank it if you were just looking at the sheer politics? We are here in the Republican National Convention. This is viewed through a political lens. How would you rank this given that has now been dismissed? This is not going to happen before the election. We'll see if the Justice Department decides to appeal this. How does this rank politically in terms of the ramifications for Trump, if this were to go to trial?

PRESTON: Well, if it had gone to trial, I mean, that in itself would be terrible for President Trump in an election year. Look, on the list of cases, it's probably number three, I'm guessing. I mean, if you were to look at least in the view of the public, I mean, you may have a legal scholars that will say, in fact, that this case was the most important one. I don't know. You know, I'll leave that up to the legal scholars. But, politically, it's a huge win for President Trump regardless of which case it is. I mean, he's just -- he is on a roll right now.

And, again, I know that Democrats are very upset and they're upset. And I've heard this this morning from Democrats sending me messages saying, hey, don't act like Donald Trump has changed just because you know, somebody tried to kill him, like he's still the same person. You can't let that persona hide who he is.

So, it's interesting to see Donald Trump says that he has kind of changed as a person. We'll see what he's like when he comes here.

RAJU: Yes. I mean, look, he still was convicted of felonies. Polls still say that voters don't want a convicted felon as their candidate. But there's so much that's happened since the New York felony conviction. Of course, he survived this new assassination attempt. We're going to have this convention. We'll have other conventions. We've already had a debate since then. We're going to have a second debate, most likely in the fall. So, in a lot of ways, what happened, the fact that, you know, we're not going to have a trial in the middle of the election season, obviously is a huge boon for him. But the last conviction essentially is either baked in among a lot of voters or a lot of voters simply are not going to be thinking about that when it comes to November.

PRESTON: You know what's really important for? It's important for the -- or at least we said this before the debate and we'll see how things change, but it's important to those undecided voters who live in where we are right here in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, who were on the fence or are on the fence about Trump.

[10:20:09]

And him not being convicted might give them more of an opening to say, look, I'll give him another try.

RAJU: Yes, we'll see. I mean, obviously such a huge decision here, Jim. I mean, we'll obviously be assessing this on the days ahead, and I'm sure this will be mentioned by more than one of these speakers here as they retool their speeches after what happened on Saturday and what happened here. But no question about it, Republicans are very happy right now.

ACOSTA: Yes, the ground is definitely shifting. Manu and Mark Preston, thank you very much.

I want to go to Elie Honig for his reaction on all of this. Elie, we thought all of our legal analysts were ready for a little time off, a little break from everything after the Supreme Court was finished for the summer. And lo and behold, here we have this major decision in the classified documents case. Did this come as a surprise to you? What do you think?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely a surprise, Jim, although we could see it coming because this was an issue that Donald Trump's team briefed, and this judge, Judge Cannon, actually showed more interest in it than usually judges have seen.

Now, the argument that Donald Trump's team has made now successfully, at least for now, is that the Special Counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed. When you look at the appointments clause of the Constitution, the gist of their argument is Jack Smith was brought in from outside DOJ and he was given essentially the same enforcement powers that a federal prosecutor would be given that a U.S. attorney or the attorney general would be given, but those positions all have to go through presidential nomination and Senate confirmation. None of that was done with respect to Jack Smith. So, the argument is that in the absence of some specific law from Congress enabling appointment of special counsel, this is unconstitutional.

And, Jim, I should note special counsel, the job that Jack Smith is filling, that is not the result of a law passed by Congress. That's a result of an internal regulation within the Justice Department that allows for appointment of a special counsel.

So, this was an argument Donald Trump's team raised. Judge Cannon did show more interest in it than the usual judge. She heard arguments. She took briefing from what we call amici, meaning outside parties who were interested in the case. Justice Thomas in the immunity decision a couple weeks ago went out of his way to say he thinks this is the way it should come out. He thinks special counsel is unconstitutional. Now, Judge Cannon has agreed.

Now, this is not going to be the end of the story, Jim. Jack Smith's team is almost certain to appeal this up to the 11th Circuit, maybe up to the U.S. Supreme Court. But a major issue here, a surprise ruling, one we had some hint might be coming, but, nonetheless, a surprise, a huge win for Donald Trump.

ACOSTA: Yes. Elie, I mean, and this is a question I asked Michael Moore earlier, I'll ask it of you, and that is -- I mean, if this case has been going on for months and months, why did Judge Cannon all of a sudden do this now? Is it basically that Justice Thomas put this bug in her ear and she said, okay, that sounds good, let's pull the ripcord here?

HONIG: Well, Justice Thomas definitely gave her a road map, and it seems she has largely followed that road map in issuing this opinion. As for the timing, the briefing has happened over the last couple weeks and months, and the argument just happened a few weeks ago. So, this would be the time when that decision would be made.

I mean, the judge did not go and make this opinion what we call sua sponte, meaning from the bench on her own. This was the result of briefing by both parties. But, Jim, it's important to note that the same or similar arguments have been made against really special counsel throughout the past several years. The same arguments were made to try to disqualify David Weiss, the special counsel in the Hunter Biden case. The court rejected that. The same arguments were made to try to disqualify Robert Mueller, the special counsel, of course, who investigated Russian interference in the election. They were rejected there.

One difference here, though, that's important to note is that Jack Smith has never been confirmed by the Senate, whereas at least Robert Mueller and David Weiss had at various prior points in their career, had been vetted and confirmed by the Senate. So, there's a slight distinction here, but, look, we do have a different outcome here with this judge than we've seen with other federal judges and that tees this up for appeal.

ACOSTA: And just very quickly, because of the current makeup of the Supreme Court, and we've seen the Supreme Court going in different directions than perhaps we might have seen with other Supreme Courts with a different kind of composition, is it possible that if it makes its way to the Supreme Court, that the Supreme Court will say, okay, we agree with Judge Cannon?

HONIG: It's very possible. First of all, we know there's one vote there already. Justice Thomas went out of his way to say this in the immunity ruling. But, look, this Supreme Court has been very careful about executive power and about congressional power. And it wouldn't shock me if this Supreme Court says, In the absence of a specific statute passed by Congress, you can't have special counsel appointed in this manner. I mean, the Supreme Court, other than Justice Thomas' concurrence really has not given us any indication of which way they may come out.

[10:25:05]

And, again, it's worth noting up until now, every federal judge who's considered this issue has rejected it. Judge Cannon is the first one who's accepted the argument that doesn't necessarily mean she's wrong. And I think you're right, Jim, to note that this has been a conservative Supreme Court, a Supreme Court that has sort of required very specific authorization from Congress in order to enable action by the executive branch. And so it would not at all shock me if the Supreme Court ends up siding with Judge Cannon here.

ACOSTA: Wow. All right, Elie, stand by. I want to go back to Katelyn Polantz to help us reset in all of this, because I'm sure our viewers who have been obviously watching their T.V. screens over the last 48 hours because of what took place in Pennsylvania, this may come as a shock as well, what they judge in this classified documents case has decided to do. I don't think there were a lot of people who thought that Judge Cannon was going to ultimately do this, but it has happened. She has tossed out this case.

POLANTZ: She has indeed. It is very likely to be appealed, and I'm already hearing from sources around Donald Trump's legal universe that there's a large expectation that there will be an appeal of this because of it not just affecting the case in Florida and closing it against Donald Trump, Carlos de Oliveira and Walt Nauta, all three of the defendants there, but also it is very likely to affect the ongoing prosecution of Trump in Washington, D.C. related to the 2020 election. That case continues on. And now there is a judge in Florida saying the prosecution is invalid.

This had not been challenged in the Washington, D.C., case, so it's very likely something that Judge Chutkan is going to be looking at now there. One of the things, as Elie was just speaking about regarding how Judge Cannon arrived at this, is she looks through history in this 93-page opinion. She looks back at independent prosecutors in the Nixon administration or after the Nixon administration. She also is looking at Smith specifically, because he is a private citizen.

And just to highlight how she arrived at this, she says, there does appear to be a, quote/unquote, tradition of appointing special attorney-like figures in moments of political scandal throughout the country's history, but very few if any of these figures actually resemble the position of Special Counsel Smith. He is a private citizen exercising the full power of a U.S. attorney with very little oversight or supervision, that's the core of her issue here with Jack Smith as the prosecutor n this case and on any case, saying that he does not have the power and Congress is not giving the executive branch the power to appoint someone like this to bring them in for an investigation like this of a political figure like Donald Trump.

So, she's putting it all together and saying this case cannot go forward, even if other special counsels, even if other independent investigators, independent counsels of the Justice Department have successfully prosecuted cases against different defendants.

ACOSTA: Yes. Well, of course, lots of questions are going to be raised about Judge Cannon. I mean, she was appointed by Donald Trump, but Judge Chutkan obviously has a very different view on all of this, and one has to think that Judge Chutkan is not going to rule in the same way that Judge Cannon did, and that these different decisions are going to make their way up to the Supreme Court and ultimately have to be decided there.

I understand Evan Perez is also available to us. Evan, if we can get your reaction to all of this. Is Evan ready? He's not ready.

Elie, what do you think about that, that possibility that these two cases could make their way up to the Supreme Court? I suppose that's probably what we're going to see here.

HONIG: I think we could well see that, Jim. And this is sort of a typical case that the Supreme Court takes, A, because it's an important issue of executive power and Congressional power, B, because one of the hallmarks of the type of case that the U.S. Supreme Court takes is when there's disagreement in the lower courts. So, now we have Judge Cannon saying it's unconstitutional to have Jack Smith functioning in the way he has been. I think you're right. I think, certainly, Donald Trump's team is now going to re-raise this in front of Judge Chutkan in the D.C. case, the January 6th case.

If I had to bet, I would bet Judge Chutkan comes out the other way and says it's perfectly fine to have Jack Smith doing what he's doing. That could then start what we call a circuit conflict, where as it moves its way up through the federal appellate courts, we could come out with differing and contradictory results. And that's typically exactly the kind of case that the Supreme Court can and should take.

ACOSTA: And Evan Perez, I believe, is set and ready now. My apologies, Evan, if I came out to you too quickly there.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's all right.

ACOSTA: Your reaction to all of this. I mean, and if you could also speak to something Elie was just saying a few moments ago, we've had special counsels before, we've had special counsel investigations before, and those judges in those cases didn't toss them out.

[10:30:06]

What's going on here?

PEREZ: Yes.