The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has granted the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) request to dismiss its case against President Donald Trump’s two co-defendants in the Florida classified documents dispute.
A Feb. 11 order confirmed the dismissal of the appeal for two Mar-a-Lago employees—Carlos De Oliveira and Waltine Nauta—who were named in an indictment brought by former special counsel Jack Smith. Under President Joe Biden, the DOJ had appealed Florida Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to dismiss the case based on the idea that Smith’s appointment violated the Constitution.
The DOJ had asked the court last month to dismiss the appeal with prejudice as it related to De Oliveira and Nauta. Smith’s team had already requested the appeal be dismissed as it related to Trump after his election. The 11th Circuit granted that request in November 2024.
The dismissal on Feb. 11 represented the end of Smith’s two controversial prosecutions brought against Trump. Another in Washington over election interference similarly ended in November 2024 after a request from Smith.
Both Smith and Jay Bratt, a counterintelligence official who worked on the case, left the department before Trump took office on Jan. 20.
The DOJ’s motion to dismiss in January was made after Cannon blocked the release of the second volume of Smith’s report on the classified documents case.
Cannon sided with an emergency motion brought by Nauta and De Oliveira. The previous administration had sought to allow certain members of Congress to read a redacted version of the report. In her Jan. 21 order, Cannon said that “there is certainly a reasonable likelihood that review by members of Congress as proposed will result in public dissemination of all or part of Volume II.”
The dismissal also leaves open questions about the legality of special counsel appointments. Cannon, a district court judge, said that Smith’s appointment violated the appointments clause and appropriations clause of the U.S. Constitution.
In Trump’s presidential immunity case, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion expressing concern about the legality of special counsel appointments.
“In this case, the Attorney General purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States,” he said in July 2024. “But, I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been ‘established by Law,’ as the Constitution requires.”
He quoted Article II of the Constitution, which outlines presidents’ authority for appointing individuals in the executive branch.
Smith had argued that Cannon’s decision was incorrect, pointing in part to a case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had upheld former special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment.
TJ Muscaro contributed to this report.
