Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Wednesday that U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump to curry favor for a possible Supreme Court nomination.
Cannon ruled Monday that the case brought by Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith violated the Appointments and Appropriations clauses of the Constitution. In a 93-page opinion, Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, determined Smith's appointment as special counsel was improper because it was not based on a specific federal statute, he had not been named to the post by the president or confirmed by the Senate, and that he had been improperly funded by the Treasury Department.
"So, you really got to ask yourself what's going on," Warren said on "The View," according to the Washington Examiner. "Looks like, to me, somebody who is trying out to be named the next Supreme Court justice."
Warren said by dismissing the case, a decision Smith is appealing, Cannon did Trump "a big solid" but she was not "following the law."
"The United States Supreme Court spoke to this very issue about a special prosecutor in 1974 and said, 'yep, totally kosher, fine thing to do,' " Warren said. "And she [Cannon] just said, 'eh, [it's] kind of harmful to Donald Trump.' "
Warren was referring to the case of United States v. Nixon, in which the Supreme Court upheld a subpoena by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski, who was seeking Oval Office recordings during the Watergate scandal. Jaworski was a private citizen, like Smith, appointed by Acting Attorney General Robert Bork.
In a unanimous ruling, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote Congress gave the attorney general the "power to conduct the criminal litigation of the United States government" and "the power to appoint subordinate officers to assist him in the discharge of his duties." He added that Bork, "acting pursuant to those statutes," delegated prosecutorial authority to Jaworski, including the power to contest President Richard Nixon's claim of executive privilege over the Watergate tapes.
But Cannon ruled that in the Nixon case, "the Attorney General's statutory appointment authority, or the matter of the Appointments Clause more generally, was not raised, argued, disputed, or analyzed; at most, the Supreme Court assumed without deciding that the Attorney General possessed statutory appointment authority over the special prosecutor involved in that action."
Warren brought up the Supreme Court as being a rallying cry for Democrats in November.
"It is the reminder about Nov. 5," she said. "We talk about all these issues, we talk about abortion, Voting Rights Act, but understand the United States Supreme Court is on the ballot as well.
"Next president [is] likely to get two, maybe three [justices], and if it is Donald Trump, he has already shown us what he will do to the United States Supreme Court. Not just for another 10 years or so but for a generation to come."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.