Donald Trump has just received some very welcome news: Aileen Cannon, the federal judge overseeing the indictment alleging that Trump took classified documents when he left office, has just thrown out the case.
Cannon, a federal judge appointed by Trump, ruled that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith violated the Appointment Clause of the Constitution because he was not appointed by the president or confirmed by the Senate. Her decision goes against the post-Watergate precedent that upheld the legality of independent prosecutors.
The idea that Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, was unconstitutionally appointed was initially raised in the recent Supreme Court decision giving the president substantial immunity from criminal prosecution. Justice Clarence Thomas encouraged “lower courts” to look into the “essential questions concerning the special counsel’s appointment.”
What does the constitution say: The Appointment Clause says that the president and the Senate have the power to appoint “Officers of the United States” but that Congress may allow “inferior officers” to be appointed by “the heads of departments,” like the Attorney General.
So the discrepancy is whether the special council is considered an inferior officer and whether, as Thomas wrote, his appointment was valid “unless a statute created the special counsel’s office and gave the Attorney General the power to fill it.”
Smith will inevitably appeal, but the decision means that Trump has overcome another major legal threat – and this one on the first day of the Republican National Convention, where he is set to formally become the party’s nominee for president.
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Artificial intelligence is already helping humanitarian organizations identify people in need, improve supply chains, and deliver assistance more efficiently. But it also introduces new risks.
AI is spreading faster, and the gap is growing wider. What that means in practice isn’t straightforward. In the first edition of AIEI Perspectives, a new editorial series from the Microsoft AI Economy Institute, six experts answer the same questions about who benefits from AI, who’s still waiting, and what shapes that outcome. Their answers don’t all land in the same place. Instead, they offer different ways of interpreting the same challenge — highlighting where views align and diverge and what it may take to close the gap over time. Read the perspectives here.
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