Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, said Monday that Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the classified documents case against former President Trump is “simply indefensible.”
“As a legal decision by a district court judge, it’s simply indefensible,” Litman told CNN’s Laura Coates Monday evening. “It almost doesn’t make sense to try to talk about it in legal terms. This is, as I said, the first Project 2025 opinion.”
“The principle is only loyalty to Trump,” he added in the interview.
Litman’s criticism of Cannon comes after she delivered the former president one of his biggest legal victories yet by tossing his classified documents indictment in its entirety.
By ruling that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed, Cannon set aside Trump’s 40 criminal charges that accuse him of mishandling classified documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Smith said later Monday that he plans to appeal the decision.
“The dismissal of the case 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,” Peter Carr, spokesman for Smith’s office, said in a statement Monday.
“The Justice Department has authorized the Special Counsel to appeal the court’s order,” Carr added.
Litman noted how quickly the vow to appeal came but said, “However quickly it is, I think she he’s done full service to Trump,” referring to Cannon, “because the 11th circuit I doubt has time to reverse this before the election.”
“The state of play for now is it’s been reversed,” Litman continued, in an interview first highlighted by Mediaite. “That check is now paid in full, on her part.”
“The very best she could have done for him,” he continued. “The 11th circuit ought to reverse it unless, of course, Trump becomes president, in which case, he’ll just say goodbye and order DOJ to stand down.”
Cannon’s decision to drop the case comes after she indefinitely postponed a trial earlier this year, citing a need to resolve numerous issues dealing with how classified information would be handled at trial.
Updated at 8:38 a.m. EDT