On July 15, 2024, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the federal case charging Trump with “willful retention of national defense information” at Mar-a-Lago, along with conspiracy and concealment charges, granting a motion Trump's lawyers had filed in February. “The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith's appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” she wrote. She also found that Smith's funding “violates the Appropriations Clause.” The order ended the charges against Trump's co-defendants, aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, as well.
Cannon was “appointed by Trump to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in 2020,” The Washington Post noted, and the ruling came “on the same day that the Republican National Convention kicked off in Milwaukee,” according to CNN. It did not touch the evidence: “Her rationale came purely on technical legal grounds and was not based on specifics of Trump's alleged actions or the strength or weakness of the charges,” CNN reported. No source shows Trump influenced the ruling; his role was as the defendant whose lawyers made the argument.
The theory had a single prominent backer. Two weeks earlier, in the presidential immunity case, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, alone, “But, I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been 'established by Law,' as the Constitution requires.” Cannon cited his concurrence repeatedly. “Cannon is the only judge to find the appointment invalid,” said W. Neil Eggleston, who served as counsel to President Obama. The Justice Department said the dismissal “deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel.” Conservative legal scholar Jonathan Turley called the theory an “outlier” but said “What she was raising was neither a frivolous or easy question,” and Thomas Berry of the Cato Institute wrote that the issues “are genuinely difficult.”
Trump responded on Truth Social that “this dismissal of the Lawless Indictment in Florida should be just the first step, followed quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts.” Smith appealed, but the appeal never reached a decision: after Trump won the election, the government dropped it as to Trump on November 25, 2024, and Trump's own Justice Department dropped it as to Nauta and De Oliveira in January 2025 (see Trump's Election Win Ends Both Federal Prosecutions Against Him Before Any Trial). The ruling was never reviewed by a higher court, and by its own terms “The effect of this Order is confined to this proceeding.” Cannon later barred release of the special counsel's report on the documents case. Related: Jack Smith Memo Says Trump Kept Classified Documents Tied to His Business Interests and May Have Shown a Secret Map on His Plane.