Judge tosses Trump documents case, ruling that the prosecutor was unlawfully appointed

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

42% : It marked another blockbuster legal triumph for Trump, following a July 1 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that as a former president he has immunity from prosecution for many of his actions in office.
38% : Trump is set to be formally named the Republican presidential nominee in Milwaukee this week challenging Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 U.S. election.
37% : In the documents case, Trump was indicted on charges that he willfully retained sensitive national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving office in 2021 and obstructed government efforts to retrieve the material.
34% : In an unusual move, she allowed three outside lawyers, including two who sided with Trump, to argue during a court hearing focused on Trump's challenge to Smith's appointment.
31% : Smith is also prosecuting Trump in federal court in Washington on charges involving the former president's attempts to overturn the 2020 election, but his lawyers have not made a similar challenge to the special counsel in that case.
29% : Cannon's ruling came two days after Trump was the target of an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.
29% : Garland appointed Smith, a public corruption and international war crimes prosecutor, to give investigations into Trump a degree of independence from the Justice Department under Biden's administration.
27% : U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the prosecution, was unlawfully appointed to his role and did not have the authority to bring the case.
23% : In an opinion agreeing with the court's decision to grant Trump broad immunity in the election-related case, Thomas questioned whether Smith's appointment was lawful using similar arguments to those made by Trump's lawyers.
19% : Cannon's ruling is the latest and most consequential in a series of decisions she has made favoring Trump and expressing skepticism about the conduct of prosecutors.
14% : Trump's lawyers challenged the legal authority for Attorney General Merrick Garland's 2022 decision to appoint Smith to lead investigations into Trump.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.