The decision yesterday by Aileen Cannon, a US district judge appointed by Trump, found that the appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel violated the US constitution as he had not been named to his post by the president or confirmed by the Senate.
Cannon ruled in effect that there was no statute that authorised a special counsel to bring charges in the Trump case and that previous court rulings including by the US supreme court in the landmark Richard Nixon case - were not binding on her decision.
"Because special counsel Smith's exercise of prosecutorial power has not been authorised by law, the court sees no way forward aside from dismissal of the superseding indictment," Cannon wrote in the 93-page decision.
The ruling casts aside previous court decisions that upheld the use of special prosecutors stretching back to the Watergate era, and removed a big legal threat to Trump on the opening day of the Republican national convention, where he is due to accept the GOP nomination for president.
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