Donald Trump could try to use Monday’s bombshell ruling tossing the Florida documents case against him to also get his election-interference case dismissed, experts told The Post.
Florida federal Judge Aileen Cannon threw out the documents case arguing that special counsel Jack Smith was appointed to prosecute it without Congress’s OK — the same situation as in the election case.
“It’s the same prosecutor … it’s the same issue, so yes, I think it puts DC in play,” Cornell University Law Professor William Jacobson said of Florida’s ruling.
Cannon’s stunning decision dismissed the entire federal indictment against Trump, 78, for allegedly illegally keeping troves of confidential documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House — and then trying to hide his conduct after.
The Trump-appointed judge threw out the case on the grounds that it violated the Constitution when US Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special prosecutor.
Cannon said the appointment was a job for Congress and that the money spent on the case needed the legislature’s approval.
In the election case, Smith also was appointed by Garland to prosecute the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Trump is accused in the federal DC case of trying to interfere in the results of the 2020 presidential election, which President Biden won and which culminated with the Jan. 6 riot.
“It only makes sense that after a favorable ruling in one case, [Trump’s legal team] would want to try to apply it in another case,” New York Law School Professor Anna Cominsky said.
She noted that Trump’s lawyers have already made a similar move involving a recent US Supreme Court decision.
The high court’s ruling involved the election case and said Trump has absolute presidential immunity for any related “official acts” he undertook at the time. Still, it is unclear what constitutes “official acts.’’
After that ruling, Trump’s team immediately tried to apply it to his porn-star “hush money” conviction in New York. That motion is still pending.
Regardless of whether DC federal Judge Tanya Chutkan sides with Trump over the Smith appointment, “This will delay the case,” Cominsky said.
She said the case is “highly unlikely” to go to trial before the November presidential election.
Smith has vowed to appeal Monday’s ruling.
Either way, “It’s a devastating blow to the government,” Jacobson said of the judge’s decision in the documents case.
“Because while up to this point the chance of this case getting to trial was slim, it’s now none before the election.
“This obviously is a huge boost for Trump because not only has he won the immunity issue, which may or may not leave DC standing, but now he has had what many people, including me, consider his riskiest criminal case dismissed.”
Jacobson said the documents case was the riskiest for Trump because legally it was the most “straightforward” out of the four criminal cases he faced and therefore would have been easiest for a jury to convict.
“I thought it posed the greatest risk to him of a potential conviction that might hold up on appeal but now the judge ruled it should never have been brought by Jack Smith,” Jacobson explained.
Cominsky said she thought Cannon’s ruling was “surprising” because “there are decades of precedent which have permitted special counsel appointments,” in cases brought under both Republican and Democratic presidents.
But Jacobson said the concurring US Supreme Court opinion from July 1 from Trump-appointed Justice Clarence Thomas on Trump immunity suggesting Smith’s appointment could be unconstitutional paved the way for Cannon’s decision.
“Considering Justice Thomas flagged this very issue, I don’t think it’s surprising that [Judge Cannon] took it up,” Jacobson said. “Now, I’m sure the government was shocked, but I think it was an open case as to this ruling.”
