 The ruling by Judge Eileen Cannon accepts the argument advanced in recent years by conservative legal minds that special counsels like Jack Smith have no power to bring indictments because they've not first been nominated by a president and then confirmed by the Senate. This stunning development on the first day of the Republican convention here in Milwaukee is being met with relief, of course, by the former president. Even if Cannon's ruling is appealed by the Justice Department, it would be many more months before this threshold matter of the legality of the indictment is fully resolved.