While it is only a matter of time before Donald Trump’s federal criminal cases are concluded, there is an important distinction between the two prosecutions, which the Justice Department has reportedly been exploring how to conclude before the newly elected president takes office in January.
The federal election interference case is in court after the Supreme Court granted Trump broad criminal immunity and sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan for the Washington judge to determine how that ruling applies to the details of the case. Trump. A layoff at this point would cut that work short and we would never know it.
But the Florida classified documents case is currently on appeal after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case. The Trump appointee threw it out on the grounds that Special Counsel Jack Smith had been improperly appointed, in a decision that prosecutors say “contradicts an otherwise unbroken line of decisions, including those of the Supreme Court, that have general has such authority, and it violates widespread and long-standing appointment practices at the Department of Justice and across the government.”
As the DOJ letter shows, the issue at stake in the documents case goes beyond Trump.
To be fair, Cannon’s ruling is not a binding precedent for other courts, as a Supreme Court ruling would be, or as an appellate court ruling would be for the region to which a particular court falls.
But if the case goes away before the appeals court can potentially overturn the outlier’s dismissal, Trump’s presidential victory will be a victory of sorts for Cannon, too — and that’s before even broaching the possibility that Trump, equipped with a Republican Party-controlled Senate, promoting her to higher office.
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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
