Special counsel appeals dismissal of Trump classified documents case

Special counsel Jack Smith said Wednesday that he is appealing a judge’s decision to throw out the indictment against Donald Trump concerning his handling of classified documents.

The special counsel team filed a notice of appeal, the initial procedural mechanism that sets the appeal in motion, on Wednesday, just two days after US District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the prosecution and well ahead of the 30-day deadline the prosecutors faced for bringing the appeal.

This means the shock ruling would be reviewed by judges from the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals based in Atlanta.

The two-page filing from Smith’s team did not indicate whether the prosecutors will seek to speed up the appeals process.

Though the appellate court is conservative-leaning, with half of the full-time judges being appointed personally by Trump, some of its rulings have defied the court’s ideological tilt.

A three-judge panel ruled against Cannon on a critical legal matter earlier in the Trump documents investigation. The three GOP appointees on that panel unanimously overturned her decision to appoint a “special master” to review the materials that the FBI seized during their raid of Mar-a-Lago in summer 2022.

In another notable ruling, the appeals court last year unanimously rejected former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ attempt to move his Georgia election subversion criminal case to federal court. That decision was penned by a conservative judge who was appointed by former President George W. Bush.

This story is breaking and will be updated.