From “breathtakingly misguided” to “unthinkable”, and “her audition for a seat on the Supreme Court”, judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling to dismiss Donald Trump’s classified documents case drew a range of outrage and surprise from Democrats and law experts, The Guardian reports. Republicans celebrated what they saw as the end of special prosecutor Jack Smith’s “illegal” pursuit of Trump. Among the loudest voices of Democratic protest was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who called for the case to be taken away from of Cannon, a Trump appointee to the federal bench in Florida. “This breathtakingly misguided ruling flies in the face of long-accepted practice and repetitive judicial precedence,” he said. “It is wrong on the law and must be appealed immediately. This is further evidence that Judge Cannon cannot handle this case impartially and must be reassigned.”
Smith will appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for The 11th circuit,, which has reversed previous rulings by Cannon in the case, including rebuking her in 2022 for appointing a special master to review the documents. “Judge Cannon did the unthinkable. Her decision is unprecedented and extreme, and very likely to be reversed on appeal,” said Harvard law Prof Laurence Tribe. Trump, meanwhile, fired off a celebratory campaign message, hours before his appearance Monday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. “I won! Case dismissed! Now it’s time for us to unite the country,” he wrote. In Milwaukee, convention-goers were unanimously welcoming of Cannon’s ruling. “Probably never should have been a case to begin with. Like all the other cases against President Trump, they’ve fallen apart over time,” said Rick Williams, an alternate delegate from Tennessee.