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(WILMINGTON, Delaware) – The federal judge overseeing the case of the former FBI informant accused of lying about the foreign business dealings of President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, has rejected an attempt to challenge the legality of the appointment of special counsel David Weiss, court records show.
The lawsuit filed by Alexander Smirnov’s lawyers was filed just hours after Judge Aileen Cannon last month unexpectedly dismissed the case involving classified documents from former President Donald Trump on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith had been improperly appointed. The case is currently under appeal.
Judge Otis Wright’s ruling in the Smirnov case is another indication that Cannon’s controversial dismissal of the Trump secret documents case – which ran counter to decades of precedent in other courts – does not hold water with other judges facing similar objections to special counsel.
Another judge hearing Hunter Biden’s tax case in Los Angeles rejected a similar challenge to Weiss’s appointment earlier this month.
Cannon’s ruling was based on the argument that Smith’s prosecution of Trump was unlawful. In her view, Smith was improperly appointed as special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland because he was never confirmed to the position by the U.S. Senate.
Special counsels have typically previously served as U.S. attorneys, who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Smith previously served as acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee and worked for the International Criminal Court in The Hague, prosecuting war crimes, when he was appointed by Garland in November 2022 to lead both the classified documents investigation and the federal election interference investigation.
Smith asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Cannon’s decision in a brief filed Monday.
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